


A House is Never Still

by CapnJack



Series: A House is Never Still [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: CS Halloweek 2019, CS Role Reversal, F/M, Modern AU, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-01-13 17:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 66,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21186392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CapnJack/pseuds/CapnJack
Summary: Five years ago, Emma Swan disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Killian Jones’ disappearance, well, not so mysterious – given the denizens of Storybrooke all but blamed him for her murder. Drawn back to town by a series of strange events, he soon realises the story of what really happened the night she vanished is beginning to unravel, and what’s more: it isn’t over.





	1. 1 - a house is never still

**Author's Note:**

> It’s @csrolereversal and @cshalloweek time! I’m so excited guys, this is my first time submitting anything for an event and I’m bouncing off the walls about it. This fic is dedicated, of course, to @hollyethecurious, without whose wonderful artwork it would not exist. Thank you for your creation, and for giving this chapter a much needed once over! Please go give her some love! 
> 
> Warnings: mentions of suicide, canonical character death and some Spooky Business™
> 
> Chapters will be posting weekly. Enjoy, I'd love to hear what you thought!

** **

**Present Day**

Even after all this time, Killian felt something of a chill run down his spine as his Chevelle sped over the town line.

He had kept himself driving through the night, only stopping once for gas a little ways outside of Portland as he’d felt it would be better if he stayed focused on the road; that way he wouldn’t linger on the reason why he’d packed a few meagre belongings and gotten in the car in the first place. Naturally, with the long, empty and deathly still roads of upstate Maine rolling out in front of him, it had backfired completely and the only thing he had been able to think of since his journey began was the destination that awaited him. It was difficult not to mull on the anxious tone of the voicemail that David had left him, babbling and nervous and unsure. Impossible still to not dwell on its subject.

_There’s something – I have something you need to see_.

For the last hour the roads had been slippery, the rain-slicked tarmac a reminder of the storm that had hit the area earlier in the day, and a considerable amount of his attention was spent ensuring his back tyres didn’t slide out with every tight corner. Fatigue nestled around his shoulders like an old friend, urging him to shut his tired eyes and relax, but he did his best to ignore it. In the dark, the trees towered over the road in distorted, twisting shapes and the shadows cast by his headlights were just barely visible through the mid-autumn mist.

No, Storybrooke was exactly how he remembered it.

Suddenly the car radio burst to life and Killian jolted at the sudden disturbance, his movement causing the car to swerve dangerously onto the other side of the road as the tyres jerked to follow him. One hand scrambled with the volume on the radio as the other wrenched the wheel to regain control, and after a brief moment of wrestling with both he managed to restore the tentative peace he had endured for the last few hours, only his hammering heart an indicator that he had lost it to begin with.

The low, barely distinguishable synth of Yaz’s _Only You_ was still pouring through the tinny speaker.

Killian, far more alert now and willing his racing pulse to slow, flicked it off.

It was an old car and often prone to such dysphoric outbursts, but that didn’t lessen the way the hairs at the base of his neck stood on end.

_Piss off_, he thought mutinously, _ghost_.

_God_, he needed to sleep.

Before long, the winding country road began to recede, and a taste of the Storybrooke suburbia began to trickle forth with a few dwellings by the side of the road, sporadic lots that quickly opened out into fully-fledged streets lined with house after house. He had agreed to meet David as soon as he got into town, although he doubted the man anticipated it being quite this late. Still, he didn't wish to waste any time. After a minute or so of tracking down the familiar turns, Killian was soon pulling his Chevelle into park outside a large, two-storey house. Once a brilliant white, dirt and age had weathered the paint until it was scratched and peeling. A single windmill lay spinning in the front yard. 

Killian tapped a brief message into his phone, before stepping out of the Chevelle and leaning against the bonnet while he waited. He didn’t wait long. After a few moments, the front door opened and David Nolan emerged, careful to shut it behind him as quietly as possible. Undoubtedly there might be a person or two inside not quite as thrilled to see him as the young man rapidly descending the stairs. He was wrapped in a thick coat and his breath was coming out in quick bursts of condensation.

To Killian’s surprise, the first thing David did when he reached him was pull him into a fierce hug.

He’d been expecting a lot of mixed emotions, certainly – trepidation, anger, disappointment. It had been a long time since he’d left the town under a similar cloak of night to the one currently slung over it. To his shame, he realised the entire drive there that he hadn’t _once_ considered that David might be pleased to see him. Once again, he hadn’t given the man enough credit. Hesitantly, he returned the gesture with as much warmth as he could muster.

Some things, then, could still feel like home.

“Thanks for coming,” David said, once he pulled back.

“I’m sorry it’s so late.”

The other man waved away his apology. “Don’t be ridiculous… you look exhausted.” David tilted his head, as if finally noticing the way his eyes were desperate to wink closed again. “Were you driving all night?”

Killian let out a breath of mirthless laughter. “Something like that.”

Try all week.

David gestured to the house behind them. “Do you want to come inside?”

Tempting, certainly tempting. Still, he shook his head. “I doubt that’s wise.” While he might have been wrong about which reception he should be expecting from David Nolan, he was positive where the rest of his family was concerned, his suppositions were entirely correct. For a moment the conversation stilled, and as Killian stared out into the dark road behind him he decided there was little point in not being upfront about the reason he had been summoned back to Storybrooke.

“So,” he began, “is it her?”

David’s countenance changed, a stiffness settling in his shoulders while his expression morphed into one of reluctance, of uncertainty. David Nolan had always been dreadful at masking his emotions, it made perfect sense that two years apart wouldn’t have had any impact on his attempts at duplicity. His lips parted, as if trying to perhaps voice a hesitant refutation, but Killian didn’t let him.

“You wouldn’t have called me if it weren’t.”

The other man shut his mouth, folded his arms. The wind whistled down the wide, empty street, sending gusts of curling, copper leaves up into the air. Killian waited.

David seemed to reach a decision. “It’s late,” he said, instead of an answer. “Let’s leave it for the morning, after you’ve had some rest.”

It wasn’t such a bad suggestion. He was exhausted. The answers he so desperately wished to claw from David Nolan could wait until he didn’t feel like any stiff wind might knock him over. He conceded the delay with a nod and a tight smile, one that David gratefully returned, and pushed away from the bonnet. As he tugged open the door David retreated a few steps back up to the house, wrapping his coat even tighter around him.

“It’s really good to see you, Killian,” he said, offering him the ghost of a grin that was almost – well. Almost sad. He then opened the door and slipped inside.

“Likewise,” he murmured to the shut door, and dropped down into his car.

The engine growled to life underneath him as he made to pull away from the curb, but as he paused out of habit to check behind him for any oncoming traffic, he thought he saw the trail of something white disappear behind one of the trees. It was brief, like the flash of colour from a light blinking out of sight. The trail of a dress disappearing from view. He was sure enough that he’d seen it to give him pause, for his hand to drop to the handle of the door as if he were making to get out again, but not _quite _enough to follow through. His hand tightened for a moment, but soon gradually released it.

It was late, he was exhausted, and he was seeing things. Or, as was often the case with him, he wasn’t, but whatever he’d seen he didn’t want to be dealing with until morning. Screw the brave thing to do; he was staying in the car. Giving the spot he had seen it one last lingering look in the mirror, he drove away.

The clock on his dashboard read just a little time before midnight, and while he considered spending the night in his car – it would be far from the first – truthfully he wished to avoid any run-ins with the Sheriff’s department where possible, at least until he’d reacquired his bearings. That left only one establishment that would remain open for a new patron so late into the night, and he realised with a jolt that his hands had steered him down the familiar roads before he'd really had a chance to think too much about it.

The exterior of Granny's Bed & Breakfast was barely visible, but from what he could make out nothing really had changed. It was made of the same chipped brick and shattered tile, the brush around the entrance long overgrown after decades of ill attention. The proprietor had always behaved like it was a complete mystery that business was never doing well, but hidden away behind the diner as it was and sheltered by woodland, most newcomers to Storybrooke would scarcely even know it existed.

Killian pulled into one of the parking spaces towards the back of the building, taking only his rucksack from the boot and leaving everything else. Although wary of such a choice at first, he felt everything else would probably be safer in his car than at Granny’s, not to mention aside from one disappearance presumed-murder several years ago, the crime rate in Storybrooke was almost non-existent. He clambered the steps and moved inside.

A loud bell rang out heralding his entrance, and he winced at the volume of the sound. Granny never wished to miss out on any potential customers. It was for that reason that the very same woman came bustling down the stairs with almost alarming speed, broad grin in place ready to welcome whomever had disturbed them so late into the night – until she realised who had done so.

Granny Lucas, small as she was, was a formidable woman. When her eyes narrowed with distinct venom, Killian immediately wished he had just decided to stay in his car.

“I have the right to refuse service to anybody that comes in here, just so you know.”

This was much more the kind of reception he had been expecting to receive from David, but it was late now, and he was tired, and he wasn’t ready to fight.

“Please,” he said. “I’ll pay whatever rate you deem is fair. Just for tonight. I can find somewhere else to stay tomorrow if need be.”

“If it’s that easy sunshine, you can stay somewhere else tonight, too.”

“Granny!”

He heard the admonishment before he saw the person who gave it, but a moment later Ruby Lucas had thundered down the stairs and emerged to join her grandmother.

She glared at her, fiercely. “You think business is good enough to turn _anyone_ away?” The young woman immediately reached behind her grandmother to retrieve the heavy, cob-ridden guestbook and dropped it with a _thud_ in front of Killian. She smiled at him, kindly, handing him a pen. “Particularly a friend.”

“A _friend_?!” Granny blustered.

“Here,” Ruby began rummaging for a key behind her, “you can take the square view.”

Killian hastily began writing his name in the book, before Granny Lucas either had a chance to assert her authority or pluck the pen out of his hands. In his haste, it became little more than a scribble. The ink smudged across the page made him think of the flash of movement he had seen by the Nolan house.

He needn't have worried. Granny Lucas let out a highly disgruntled noise, before clearly deciding she wished no part in it and stalking into the back room.

“Thank you,” Killian said, once she was gone. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Ruby gave him a look; a rueful, warm thing. “Don’t be silly. This is your home, too.”

The key she had handed him was the same as any other the inn provided, but it still made him ache. It was hung on a large metal keyring, the engraving of a swan at the top of it before receding into carved silver roses and thorns. 

“Come see me in the morning,” she suggested, “I’ll make sure we get you something good cooked up for breakfast.”

Killian thanked her again before mounting the stairs. He later realised, on closer inspection, that the silver swan was also engraved with another message.

_Welcome to Storybrooke_.

“Well,” he muttered, slipping the key into the lock, “we’ll just have to see, won’t we?”

-/-

**October 14th 2014 – 5 Years Ago**

Emma’s desk jolted as two strong hands _thwacked_ down on it with force.

“I’ve found it.”

God, _just_ when she was beginning to make progress.

Unimpressed, she lifted her gaze from the calculus textbook in front of her, after all this time still a puzzling, blurred mix of numbers and symbols that was only just starting to penetrate her mind, as easily distracted as it often found itself. Given she had left a desperate plea on the sign by the quiet study section of the library that she was _not_ to be disturbed, she fixed her would-be guerrilla opponent with an irate stare.

There, with his dark hair stuck up at all angles as if he had spent the last hour running through it with an agitated hand, eyes wide and bright but distinctly _pleased with himself_, like the cat that had worked out just which dressing complimented diced canary perfectly, stood Killian Jones.

Of course he’d be the one disrupting her precarious peace.

“Don’t tell me – it’s hot cocoa, with cinnamon, and you’re about to hand it over.”

She held out her hands expectantly, offering him the sweetest smile she could muster.

Killian didn’t buy it for a second, and when he made to continue with that same eager glint in his eye, she cut him off.

“—Because that is the _only _reason I’ll accept you bothering me right now! Killian, you know how much math is kicking my ass, I have to work.”

“I know, but this is –”

“‘This is more important than hairspray to Regina’ better be how that sentence ends.”

“Aye, it’s—”

“More important than hairspray to Regina, say it.”

“Swan—”

She waggled her pen up at him threateningly.

“_Say it_.”

“Oh _bloody hell_,” Killian snapped, snatching her pen from the air with a huff of impatience. “Yes, it’s more important than – hair products, or – or David’s truck. _There_.”

David’s truck was a brand new (second hand) 1973 F-Series. It could manage nought to sixty in eleven excruciatingly painful seconds, but David could not be prouder of it if he’d birthed the thing and raised it himself, rather than receiving it as a seventeenth birthday present from Ruth.

Emma surveyed Killian carefully, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms. “That’s a pretty serious allegation you’re making, Jones.”

“Aye, and I mean every word of it.”

“I caught him _singing_ to that truck the day before yesterday.”

“Every. Word.”

After a pregnant pause, Emma decisively shut the textbook.

Immediately pleased, Killian reached hurriedly behind him and scraped a chair across the vinyl floor so he could join her at the table.

“I _found_ it,” he said again, and he had that same excited, agitated look on his face, like the news was practically spilling out of him to tell her.

“You’re going to need to be more specific.”

“_It_,” he continued, “Brooke House.”

Whatever jest had been waiting to spring from the tip of her tongue died immediately on parted lips. She watched him for a few seconds, trying to check the sincerity of the remark the same way she always did – but no, Killian wasn’t trying to trick her. Whatever he’d found, he genuinely believed it to be Brooke House. Which was impossible.

“Brooke House,” she said carefully, knowing how much of a touchy subject this must be for him, “doesn’t exist.”

Killian shook his head fiercely.

“It’s there. In the north woods, just like Liam said. I was hiking on the White Pine trail when I heard –”

“You were _hiking_?”

“Yes, when I heard –”

“Like, honest to God, timberlands and a windbreaker, hiking? _You_?”

Killian let out an exasperated sigh, and Emma could see she was rapidly getting on his nerves, causing him to react far too violently for her to continue the passing jest. While ordinarily she would enjoy getting her friend so riled up, there was nothing ordinary about Brooke House. Especially, she realised, since whatever he had stumbled across he sincerely believed to be the missing piece of a puzzle he had lived for years without.

With that in mind, she sobered up quickly. She should give him the attention he deserved.

“I’m sorry,” she said, reaching out to squeeze his hand. “Carry on.”

He couldn’t even spare an ounce of his nervous energy on feeling grateful.

“It was so strange, Emma. I don’t even remember when I left the trail. I must have been walking for at least ten minutes or so off-road – that’s how long it took to get back – but I suddenly heard this… creaking. Like the way the sign for Gold’s shop moves.” With an almost supernatural precision, the sign for Mr. Gold’s Pawnbrokers had a tendency to rock back and forth at the same pace, no matter how high or low the wind whistled down Main Street. “And I just… _knew_. So I followed it and there it was – Brooke House. Near the edge of the ravine.”

Emma chewed on her lip. “Okay.” Killian wasn’t a liar, or she’d never known him to be. So, he found a house in the woods. That didn’t necessarily make it anything more than a holidaymaker’s cabin. “How do you know it’s… Brooke House?”

“There was a sign.”

Emma sighed. “Oh, well that’s convenient, isn’t it?”

Killian frowned at this, but she knew at least one of them had to point it out. Killian had searched those woods a hundred times, more – the whole town had given a crack at it once the _Storybrooke Mirror_ had sensationalised the whole affair, and nobody had ever found it. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that this was all some elaborate prank from somebody caught up on the story – somebody uninterested in the emotional weight it carried for those to whom it meant more than a spooky episode in the town’s history.

Those like Killian Jones.

“It’s the real deal, Emma,” he insisted, firmly. Emma remained doubtful. “I just know it. Don’t you trust me to be able to tell the difference?”

It wasn’t a matter of trust. It was a matter of knowing just how much even the _possibility_ that it actually existed must have been fucking around with his emotional state all the way from the trembling moment he had stumbled across it to right now.

Hope had a funny way of making somebody see a ghost – they had all learnt that the hard way.

“Liam wasn’t crazy – and _this_ is the proof.”

Emma remembered when Liam Jones had died. It had been four years ago, just prior to the first time she met Killian. He had driven his car over the edge of a ravine near the boundary of the north woods, close to the town line, and had crashed into the river beneath. The coroner had ruled that death would have been near instantaneous at the point of impact.

After an investigation, it had been declared a suicide.

Not for the first time, Emma couldn’t imagine what kind of damage that knowledge had done to Killian.

But Emma also remembered a scared, lonely twelve-year-old who, even while processing the sudden death of the person closest to him, had found it in himself to be kind to somebody even more frightened than he at all the harm the world had wrought her.

Probably without his notice, his hand had crept across the table to hers and linked their fingers together.

Emma noticed, though.

“Will you – come back with me? To see it?”

To an imaginary house in the middle of the woods, on a hunch that its contents might pertain clues to his brother’s mysterious suicide?

For him, anything.

“Of course,” she said, and Killian visibly relaxed. When he released her hand she realised it was throbbing a little from how tight he had been clutching it. “Just, erm… let me drop this stuff back to Ruth’s.”

She started haphazardly gathering her strewn out study materials.

“Thank you,” he added quietly. “I’ll meet you by the trail end?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

-/-

**Present Day**

Killian rose far earlier than he had been intending, but something in the town was preventing him from catching even a fading vestige of sleep. It was something in the air, a thickness, a sensation which hung heavily around him. As if from the moment he had crossed the town line he had become a pulse of disturbance, and with every twist he made in the scratchy sheets at Granny’s sent out waves of ripples out into the ether, like a beacon to his presence. He felt exposed, and he’d spent much of the last few years fighting to remain out of sight.

He had considered calling David, but even with his work at the shelter he couldn’t be expected to be as cognizant as Killian prior to six o’clock in the morning. Instead, his eyes heavy with the taunt of sleep, he had gone for a walk.

There was much of Storybrooke he wanted to see again, and the more he considered it, the less he wanted to be visiting them at more populous times.

After emerging from Granny’s Bed & Breakfast, he stopped briefly to check the handles and the windows of his Chevelle. It didn’t look like it had been broken into, and a quick glance in the boot abated his concerns for his equipment. If David was to be believed, he wasn’t sure what he’d need – possibly all of it.

The morning was bleak and grey, a dark cloud lurking towards the south of the town threatening to open up onto the streets below with little warning. Deserted, the only noticeable movement was the scatter of crisp, golden leaves across the centre of the Main Street as they were ushered further down by strokes of wind. He wrapped his coat tighter around him. The clock tower stood exactly as he remembered it, proud and unchanged, but it was the room underneath that interested him most.

The library had closed – not that he was surprised. There had been a significant decline in interest as most turned their attention to the new age of internet research and Netflix even while he had lived there, and it had been cobbling together its running costs through sparse donations from Storybrooke’s more sympathetic residents. Now it looked as if somewhere in the last five years it had conceded defeat, and the windows were now clumsily boarded up with a chain looped around the handle of the door.

Through cracks in the panelling, Killian could still spot the abandoned rows of books lining the shelves, now doomed to gather dust and little else.

_Don’t tell me – it’s hot cocoa, with cinnamon, and you’re about to hand it over_.

He winced.

The chain appeared weak, or a sturdy pair of pliers could probably make quick work of the lock; either way, he could definitely break his way in if need be. Given his less than warm reception from Granny the night before, he doubted he’d be able to conduct his study with any real privacy in a room at the bed and breakfast and he should be considering alternate locations. The library’s closure actually presented something of an opportunity.

There was one other place he had wanted to return to, but trepidation stayed his movements. Maybe he wasn’t ready. Besides, the town was beginning to wake, and it would be better if he got off the streets.

Going back the way he’d come, Killian quickened his pace but went a block further, rounding the corner to head into Granny’s Diner instead of the residential entrance – he sorely hoped Ruby had meant what she’d said about that cooked breakfast. The sign on the door beckoned _open_, so he slipped inside.

To his relief, Ruby was stood behind the counter, just beginning to tie her apron around her waist. When she saw who had entered, she offered him a reassuring smile, tying the bow off at the back with a flourish.

“Coffee?” she asked, brightly.

God, he couldn’t be more relieved people like her were still in town.

“Please.”

He unlooped his scarf from around his neck and dropped it on the counter, hastily warming up from the space heater Granny liked to keep on full blast above the counter as the months turned colder. The older woman had always been a little tight with her purse, but while she invested in central heating for the bed and breakfast at the behest of many a desperate customer, she had insisted the heat from the griddle and oven should be enough to keep the diner at a comfortable temperature. The space heater was the only concession she made, which usually kept the barstools constantly occupied at peak times and otherwise.

Ruby soon approached with a mug and a pot of steaming coffee, and Killian thanked her as she handed it over.

“You’re up early,” she mused. “Granny said she went to wake you about half an hour ago, but you weren’t there.”

_Granny went to snoop, more likely_. What kind of proprietor tried to wake their customers before seven? He shared a knowing look with Ruby, who had the good grace to look a little sheepish on her grandmother’s behalf.

“I didn’t sleep much.”

“Is it the guilt?” called a sharp voice from the kitchen.

“_Granny!_”

“Worse,” Killian bit back loudly, “your mattresses.”

Ruby looked part irritated, part flustered, and cast an angry glare at the door to the kitchen. “I’m so sorry,” she said to Killian, “just give me a sec.”

She disappeared through the door into the kitchen, and Killian watched through the pass as she exchanged some harsh words with the elder Lucas, who soon huffed and stormed out of sight. Killian thought he heard the connecting door to the inn swing closed.

“Sorry about that,” Ruby continued, marching back out to the counter, a forced cheeriness there that barely masked the fury he could see dancing behind her eyes. “Granny’s got some work to do, but Floyd will be here in like, ten minutes, and he’ll kick off the breakfast rush.”

“Fine by me. She’s, ah, still the firecracker I remember.”

Ruby sighed heavily. “Wouldn’t let a silly thing like a triple bypass slow her down.”

Killian smiled over the rim of his coffee. “Of course not.”

They passed a few contented moments in silence, Ruby running a cloth across the counter and switching on the milk steamer, and Killian had just about settled himself into it when she spoke again.

“So,” she began, “what brings you back to town?”

He was tempted to suggest Granny’s snooping should have given her an indication, but the words stopped dead on the tip of his tongue once he turned to look at her. She was concentrating perhaps a little too hard on the glass she was currently polishing, staring fixedly at the way the dishcloth had folded in on itself as she pushed it inside, determinedly not looking at him. It was _too_ nonchalant, and everything else in her posture suggested her attention was still aimed solely at him. Lowering his coffee back to the counter, he realised why.

“You _know_,” he observed, “don’t you?”

Ruby refused to meet his eye.

“You do. Maybe I should be the one asking _you_ questions.”

“I don’t know anything,” she insisted. “No more than anyone else in Storybrooke.”

Killian clicked his tongue. “I’m hardly what you’d call a local anymore, love.”

The waitress seemed more reluctant still, throwing a wary look at the door out to the kitchen. Granny Lucas hadn’t reappeared.

Eventually, she decided to continue.

“I’ve just – heard things. Rumours, mainly. People have been losing stuff they have no sense losing, hearing things they have no right hearing. Nobody has hiked in weeks because of some freak weather, and people are saying the trails are haunted. You know how Storybrooke gets in October.” Like most rural towns, every other house seemed to have a ghost story of its own.

Although, Killian thought to himself, at least one of them was true.

“Then there’s what happened to David, but I bet you already know about that. The moment he told me I had a feeling you’d be back.”

She wasn’t wrong, but Killian had a feeling there was more to this than she was letting on. He told her as much.

“It… it was only once. But as I was locking up two nights ago, I thought – well,” she bit her lip, “at the edge of Main Street, I thought I saw –”

The loud clanging of the bell over the door, along with the slide of the shutters against the glass, startled them both. Ruby almost dropped the glass she was holding, and Killian merely willed his racing heart to slow. Most importantly, he wanted her to continue talking.

“What did you see?”

Ruby shook her head tightly, quickly moving across to the other end of the counter to serve the new customer.

“Ruby –”

“Two coffees to – oh!”

With a start, Killian recognised who had just walked into the diner at the exact moment she realised he was sitting there.

Clad in a soft, lavender coat wrapped tightly around her, a grey scarf wound around her neck and a familiar looking beret atop her cropped dark hair, Mary Margaret Blanchard was staring at him wide eyed, a gloved hand having flown to her chest in surprise at the sight of him.

Gone were the softer edges of her jaw that he remembered from the last time he had seen her, replaced by the distinctive shape of womanhood, the muted hazel of her eyes just a little darker than he remembered them being. Clearly she was no longer the girl he had known when he was scarcely a boy himself, and this woman stood in her place, staring at him as if he were a ghost.

He wondered what she must see when she looked at him.

“Oh,” he echoed her, once he’d gathered his wits, “hello.”

“Hi,” she greeted weakly, uncertain. Five years had passed, and she was just a little less sure of them than he was. “Um two – two coffees to go, please.” This she directed at Ruby, who was happy to have an excuse to busy herself away from Killian’s inquisitive eye.

“I didn’t know you – how are you, Killian?”

He smiled; Mary Margaret’s first thought was always one of kindness. “I only got into town last night. I’m well, thank you.” Mary Margaret returned his smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Remarkably, she looked rather like she’d prefer to be anywhere than the tiny space of air three feet away from Killian that she was currently occupying.

Odd, he thought, when they had all once been so close.

“And yourself?”

“Oh, I’m – I’m good, too. Great, really. I work at the elementary school now.” Her body pivoted, as if intending to point out of the window but realising halfway through that it was pointless, as the school was all the way across town and, besides, he knew exactly where it was. “As a teacher.”

He almost said it. He _almost_ did.

_Emma would have loved that_.

Instead, he offered his own congratulations. “That’s bloody brilliant,” he grinned. At least one of them had been able to get exactly what they wanted. “Amazing.”

“Thank you.”

“Cream?”

Mary Margaret wrenched her gaze away from Killian. “Uh – sorry?”

“Cream,” Ruby repeated, not unkindly, “did you want it?”

“Oh, yes. Thanks.” She reached absently up to straighten her beret.

Deciding to take the encounter as an act of providence, Killian figured he might as well make the most of it. If even Ruby had been detecting something had shifted in the air, then somebody like Mary Margaret had to have almost as many explanations as David.

“I was hoping to run into you,” he began, “I was wondering if I could ask you –”

“Killian, I’m going to stop you right there.”

To his surprise, her interjection had been decisive, and left little room for argument. It was the sort of voice she had always saved for when she wanted to put her foot down, when things were ever getting a little too far out of hand and she had decided to put a stop to it. It probably served her well in the classroom, and the sparsity of its use had meant they had always taken her seriously when she used it.

And she had used it now.

“Alright,” he said, tilting his head to the side and encouraging her to continue.

Mary Margaret hesitated, as if searching for the right words.

“I’ve put it behind me,” she said eventually, with the same directness. “All of it. And I want to keep it there.”

_She could do that?_ _Like it was even _possible_?_

“So if _that’s_ the reason… if that’s why you’re back in town, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t talk to me. Not until you’ve found your peace, too.”

Peace, that was what she called it. Putting a lid on something too painful to carry and shutting it away where it couldn’t hurt her – if that was peace, he wanted no part of it.

“Have you?” she asked, almost hopefully. _Found your peace?_

In answer he merely shrugged, rueful and tired. “What do you think?”

Two coffees were placed on the counter in front of Mary Margaret and after a long moment she broke eye contact and reached forward to take them.

“Take care, Killian.”

She turned to go.

He made to go back to his own coffee, now lukewarm and bitter since being left untouched for a number of minutes, but paused as he watched Mary Margaret hesitate, then pivot on her feet to take one last look back at him.

She smiled, and he knew this was genuine.

“It really is good to see you. I’m glad you’re okay.”

He returned the sentiment, and before long the door was chiming and clanging shut behind her, the shutters bouncing off the back of the wood.

Killian couldn’t work out how he felt. It would be decidedly easier if he was _angry_, and for a number of moments he tried to be. Tried to be furious that she could leave it all in the past, that she could throw everything they had all been to each other into a place where she couldn’t see it, David included. But the fury wouldn’t come. Only the same tired melancholy he had carried with him for years, begging for him to let it all go. Not everybody could carry a torch as enduring as that, and it had been draining him for almost a decade – first Liam, then Emma. He couldn’t resent Mary Margaret for wanting to preserve her strength for the next phase of life, not the last.

It just wasn’t that easy for him. Or for David.

Which just left Regina.

After a moment, Killian suddenly remembered Ruby had been about to tell him something, but when he turned back to the counter he found Ashley, another waitress, in her place.

“Where’s Ruby?”

“She said she had to go prepare a couple of rooms in the Inn for some guests checking in later.” Ashley grinned, and proffered a fresh pot of coffee. “Refill?”

Rather dazedly, he realised the tired jukebox in the corner was now spitting out the second verse to _Only You_. Once he noticed it, he zeroed in on the sound. He gritted his teeth. 

Shaking his head at Ashley’s offer, he rose from his stool. He had work to do.

-/-

**October 27** ** th ** ** 2014 – 5 Years Ago**

A large mug of a bitter, foul-smelling liquid was placed in front of him.

“There,” Sheriff Humbert said, settling into the seat across him. “You said you were tired. There’s a coffee for you.”

With difficulty, Killian raised his tired eyes from the steam curling out into nothingness from the mug, and tried to stare the sheriff down. He was sure the effect was less than pitiful, what with the dark circles that had settled uncomfortably underneath his eyes, red-rimmed and barely blinking open. Sometimes when he tried to focus on the Sheriff, he found his gaze drifting six inches or so to the left, and his thoughts were becoming muddled and bleary.

Only one thing remained crystal clear in his mind. Over and over, the scream that battered and ricocheted around his skull.

_(Killian – Killian, don’t –!)_

When he spoke, the words scratched the back of his throat and his voice was hoarse – he had been yelling all night, and in the pastel pink glow of morning that trickled through the barred window, he needed to rest.

“You’re not letting me go?”

The sheriff folded his arms. “I’m not satisfied yet.” Bloody _fuck_ this man was coming after him like a rabid dog. Emma was – Emma was – _gods_ knew what had happened to Emma, but Killian would have much preferred he was out there looking for her and not trapped in here under the doubtful scrutiny of the town’s only detective. Damn Mary Margaret and her insistence on _this_.

He knew at this very moment the woods were being combed through by any of the denizens of Storybrooke awake and aware of what had happened, and he longed to join them.

“So, let’s go over it again,” the sheriff continued. “You and your friends are out in the woods in the middle of the night for – well, god knows what. Then Emma Swan just – disappears?”

_Her wrist stained red, angry welts erupting across her forearm. Eyes as dark as obsidian._

Killian wanted to cry. Already had. Had wept for hours as they tore through the forest.

_Killian – Killian, don’t –!_

“Yes, she disappeared.”

“Your friends say she was with you when she went missing. That you were the last one to see her.”

“I was.”

The sheriff spread a hand, inviting him to continue. When Killian was not forthcoming, he pressed. “So, _what_ did you see?”

“I didn’t _see_ anything,” Killian snarled, even as his voice trembled and cracked. “Aren’t _you_ the police? Shouldn’t I be asking _you_ for answers?”

A wave of nausea rose from his gut to his gullet, and with difficulty he pushed it back down as he pressed a hand to his forehead. It came away wet, drenched in sweat and dew.

“Why were you out in the woods?”

He took a deep breath, tried to force himself to sound normal. “We were just messing around.”

“At midnight?” The sheriff stared at him doubtfully. “Near a ravine?”

_The_ ravine, he knew he wanted to say. No use in either of them being coy about just _why_ Killian, a seventeen-year-old, had become a target in this investigation.

“Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Were you drinking?”

“No.”

“_Had_ you been drinking?”

Killian’s gaze snapped up angrily. “_No_.”

Sheriff Humbert clicked his tongue. “Had Emma Swan been drinking?”

Without planning to, Killian’s fist swung down and slammed on the table, _hard_.

He’d not let an asshole like _Humbert_ disparage her.

“Nobody was bloody drinking, alright?”

“What other reason do five seventeen-year-olds have to venture into the woods in the middle of the night?”

His wrist was still sticky with blood, and he knew he stank. His leather jacket had been flung onto the floor within five minutes of him being shut in the interrogation room, but his shirt was still foul with sweat and earth. He knew how it looked, but he hadn’t been thinking of that when the four of them had finally agreed to admit this had spiralled far out of their control.

Emma was gone. And they needed _help_.

But they shouldn’t have come here.

“Emma is _missing_,” he spat at the detective, fury and misery overwhelming him, and he felt the humiliating sting behind his nose that he knew would preface hot tears as his shoulders began to tremble. He had always felt things too deeply, that was his problem.

_I’m not finished, _Liam had snapped, _don’t you walk away from me_.

“You should be out there bloody finding her, not grilling me!”

“Emma _is_ missing,” the sheriff agreed sharply, “and I assure you, I’m doing everything in my power to find her, but for that I need you to _stop_ fighting me.”

Killian could scarcely remember a time when he _hadn’t_ been fighting.

_Don’t tell me – it’s hot cocoa, with cinnamon, and you’re about to hand it over_.

The sheriff drummed his fingers on the table. “Are we on the same page, Mr. Jones?”

Wiping his eyes, he nodded mutely.

“You and your friends reckon she disappeared around midnight, is that correct?”

“Yeah,” he croaked.

“Then why did no one come to alert the station until five?”

_(Bring her back. You bring her back right now, Jones, or I swear –!) _

Killian swallowed. “We were – trying to find her.”

“You were trying to find her,” Sheriff Humbert repeated.

“We didn’t think it was serious. At first. We thought she’d just wandered off.”

The words tasted like ash in his mouth.

“And you say no alcohol was involved?”

“_No_.”

“Then why in god’s name weren’t you a little more concerned that your friend had just – disappeared? If you had told us sooner, we might have –”

The door to the interrogation room burst open.

Dr Archibald Hopper (MD) stood in the doorway, quivering with a barely suppressed rage which he directed solely at the sheriff. Killian, far more overwhelmed and relieved to see him than he had ever been in his entire life, finally gave way to the weariness of keeping his emotions at bay and felt tears begin to spill down his cheeks. He quickly covered his face with his hands, but could hear the furious exchange between the social worker and the detective.

“Sheriff Humbert, I must _insist_ you stop this instant. Killian, don’t say another word.” A pause. “How _dare_ you?”

The sheriff was unapologetic. “He’s a witness.”

“He’s a _minor_, Sheriff, need I remind you. And he has been through quite enough today already.” Killian dropped his hands, and he could tell the moment Archie realised he’d been crying. “Do you have _any_ idea what kind of irreparable harm you may have already caused this poor boy? Killian, get your jacket.”

Forcing his stiff limbs into movement, Killian knocked his chair back with a loud scrape and reached for his discarded jacket. It was torn in at least three places he could see.

“This was a voluntary interview, Dr Hopper – Killian came to us. A girl is missing.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Archie replied hotly. “That girl was put under my charge long before she became your _case_, Mr Humbert. And I will not have you waste valuable resources in here interrogating a _child_ when you should be out there, finding her.”

He ushered Killian to the door who went, willingly. He felt as if he might be floating, was more relieved to have somebody else take charge; he almost staggered into Archie as he was led out into the hall.

“If you approach this boy again without my _express _permission you’ll be hearing from my attorney.”

“This isn’t over,” the sheriff growled.

“Oh,” Archie scoffed, a hand landing heavily on Killian’s shoulder as they began marching down the hall, “it really is.”

Killian tripped over his feet as he tried to keep up, and caught only the side of Archie’s stony expression as he looked over at the man. He had never seen him like this. Ever since he had moved into the group home Archie had been nothing but mild-mannered pragmatism, had endured a thousand wild tempers from Killian over the years with nothing other than an infuriating level of understanding, to the point where it had occurred to him on more than one occasion that it wasn’t even _possible_ for Archie to get angry.

It had also never really occurred to him that the man cared a whit for him beyond that which his profession demanded, but perhaps that had been more Killian’s tendency to close himself off to the possibility. Emma had taken a long time to penetrate, too.

At the thought of Emma, another wave of nausea rushed over him and he tugged on Archie’s sleeve as they left the station, stopping in his tracks and hunching over the flowerbed near the entrance. He retched three times, but nothing came out. There was nothing for his body to expel. He realised he was hungry. _Famished_. Archie rubbed a gentle hand on his back until he felt well enough to straighten.

“Killian,” he said gently, much more the man he knew than the hurricane that had whisked him away from Sheriff Humbert. He stooped to meet his eye, and Killian could see the sorrow that had settled softly behind the rim of his glasses. “I’m going to ask you this only once, because I trust you to be completely honest with me.”

Killian nodded, quivering in the brisk air of morning.

Archie’s mouth was set in a thin, concerned line.

“Do you know what happened to Emma Swan?”

_Killian – Killian, don’t –!_

It was a good thing Archie Hopper trusted him.

“No.”

Even if he shouldn’t.

-/-

**October 20** ** th ** ** 2019 – 6 Days Prior to Present Day**

After a few moments, David realised he was awake.

Awake, but he couldn’t move.

As if there were some yawning gap between his impulses and his actions, when he tried to rise to a sitting position or even twitch a finger, he felt nothing stir. His ears had popped or, at least, that’s what it sounded like – the regular hums of the old house, the refrigerator, the electric heater on the landing that Ruth always insisted on leaving on, were unusually muffled and a distant ringing had settled there instead.

The room was dark as pitch, only a crack of light from the streetlamp outside falling against the opposite wall, and he knew Ruth must be asleep. Once again he tried to lift a hand, unconsciously intending to mop some of the sweat from his brow, but when nothing happened a swell of panic began to rise within him.

And all at once, he understood he was no longer alone in his bedroom.

With his eyes fixed on the ceiling David couldn’t turn his gaze to the unknown assailant, lurking as they were just at the end of his bed, but he could hear the gentle swish of fabric against the floor, the beams of light from the window winking in and out as the figure passed in front of them, and he began to breathe harder. He was desperate to take deep, gasping breaths but his lips refused to open further than a sliver, and the more he tried to regain control, the more agitated he became.

“Stop,” a gentle voice whispered, “it’s alright.”

David froze and his heart soared, but was immediately clutched by an intense and terrible terror; because he knew that voice.

Something touched his right hand, cold and dead and strange, clutching onto him tight and when David tried to flinch away he managed the barest flicker of movement. Pulse racing and bolstered by the progress, David focused all of his energies on his neck, stiff and unyielding, needing to turn and get a look at the intruder.

As their grip overtook his entire hand, with an enormous effort he managed to tilt his head.

Their eyes locked for a split second, and the darkness stole his cry.

The intruder stared at him intently. They wanted him to remember.

“Bring me the dagger.”

He blinked, and like a spell had been lifted David lurched onto his right side, gasping for air and resisting the urge to retch, a clumsy hand fumbling for the lamp at his bedside and slamming the switch. Warm light bloomed through the entire room, but David was alone again.

His mind kept whirling, replaying the image over and over and trying to process what he had seen – but that stranger, he couldn’t forget them. It was a face he’d spent every single day over the last five years desperate to remember and cherish forever.

It was Emma.

Not caring for the lateness of the hour, David scrambled for his phone left charging by his bed, and called the only person in the world who might believe him.

After stumbling his way through a greeting on Killian’s voicemail, he tried to get to the crux of the thing in the least alarming way possible.

“There’s something – I have something you need to see.”


	2. 2 - whispering in distant chambers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is chapter two! Again, I have to heap innumerable amounts of praise and gratitude on HollyeLeigh (@hollyethecurious on tumblr) without whose AMAZING aesthetic I would not have even come up with the bones for this fic. You can check out her post of the art [here!](https://hollyethecurious.tumblr.com/post/188619611198/a-house-is-never-still-by-capnjay21-a-cs-au-for) I'd also like to thank everybody who's hopped on board so far, I'm so glad to have you! And finally, huge thanks to the @csrolereversal event chaps, I love all of you and your support. 
> 
> This chapter is a day early as unfortunately I won't be able to post over the weekend as I've had some bad news in my family life, and muchos love to @carpedzem for being a true pal about that <3 as a result, the next chapter will be in two weeks, not one. I hope that's okay! 
> 
> And that's enough of me rambling - enjoy!

** **

** October 14 ** ** th ** ** – 5 Years Ago **

What were you supposed to take with you for trips to creepy old houses in the middle of the woods?

Rather unceremoniously, Emma dumped her textbooks onto the end of her bed and grabbed a rucksack from the corner. Better to be prepared. Unfortunately, most of what she knew about preparing for these sorts of expeditions had been ripped entirely from cinema, and as such the first object she could bring to mind was _rope_. Immediately she dismissed the idea. What the hell would she actually _need_ rope for? After a beat of hesitation, Emma opened her bottom drawer and rummaged around for what she had hidden inside – a small fishing knife, one she had lifted from an unsuspecting dockworker when she was thirteen, for the delighted _danger_ of it, and the way it had made her younger self feel powerful. It had moved with her to the Nolan house, although she had stuffed it out of sight to avoid Ruth or David seeing it.

Still, she didn’t know what they could expect in the woods that day. She was desperate to be helpful, especially given the gentle way that Killian had asked him to accompany her, as doubtful as she was about the legitimacy of the trip.

Brooke House did not exist. _That_ was well documented.

She had asked Archie about it once, when she could contain her curiosity no longer. Apparently when the Jones brothers had moved to Storybrooke, Killian eleven and Liam eighteen, the elder had supported them and joined the community as a promising labourer. He made his living as a home restorer, but quickly gained a reputation for his work completing odd carpentry jobs around town. And through it all, he had often discussed the work he was completing on a small house in the north woods. Brooke House, he had called it.

After he had died, the sheriff’s department had gone looking for the property Liam Jones had spent much of his time in for any clues as to why he might have wished to end his own life.

They hadn’t found a thing.

When word got out, the entire town had gone wild. Apparently the _Storybrooke Mirror_ had sensationalised it, painted all the talk of Brooke House as the ramblings of a disturbed man, and all had wanted to take a crack at finding it – the phantom of the forest. Not least of all Killian. Killian, who had searched for that house a thousand times, _desperate_ to believe it wasn’t so. Emma’s heart had broken when Archie had recounted the tale, and advised her gently to keep it to herself.

It hadn’t stopped her knocking on the door to his room at the group home; she had found him staring miserably at his unpacked suitcase, knees tucked up to his chest.

_Another banner year, right?_

_What?_

_We’ve all got ghosts here_.

“Emma?”

A gentle knock at her door revealed David hovering on the threshold. He was just beginning to come into his broad shoulders now, shirking the lanky boy she had known as just another classmate for so long.

“Hey. Do we have rope?”

“I thought you were studying.” David took one look at the rucksack she was holding, the boots she had pulled on with the laces still undone, and the torch she was stuffing into the pack. “When you’re obviously… going caving?”

Emma laughed, shaking her head. “Close. Killian and I are going hiking.”

That had seemed like a more reasonable explanation to her, but apparently David disagreed.

“Hiking? _You?_”

She rolled her eyes, but had to suppress a snort. “I think we should all go hiking more. The complete _surprise_ we’re met with when any of us suggest we’re planning to is _not_ flattering.” 

“You know it says be wary of bears, not bear _claws_.”

He looked altogether far too pleased with himself, so she ignored him and continued to peruse the bedroom for items she might like to take. It was mostly devoid of belongings, over the years she had learnt it was preferable to be able to pack light, but she had accumulated a few things over her time with Ruth and David which might be of value.

“How come?” David asked.

“Killian,” Emma offered, by way of answer, “he thinks he’s… oh, I don’t know.” At the last moment she decided not to elaborate. No doubt David would have his own thoughts about the rationalisation of the expedition. “Rope?”

David arched an eyebrow. “Do I look like a mountaineer?”

Emma took one look at him, the plaid shirt and the sturdy boots he wore, perfect for the volunteering he often did for the farms outside of town.

“A _little_,” she smirked.

David chose to ignore the jibe, and instead wandered over to where she was packing. “Why would you need rope?” Emma realised at the same moment he did that the backpack was hanging quite far open, far enough for him to take a peek at the contents, and although she rushed to close it he was quicker than her. David snatched the bag and stuck an arm inside it, before lifting out the knife with an indignant look on his face. “What’s really going on, Emma?”

She bit her lip, weighing her options – but the irked stare he was giving her, combined with the fierce protective streak she knew he nurtured and his often uncanny ability to sense her in a lie, she decided to tell him the truth.

“Killian thinks he’s found Brooke House,” she admitted, “I’m just going for moral support.”

While he blustered for a response, Emma made a grab for the bag and the knife, decidedly shoving one back into the other.

“And you think you’ll need – _that?_”

“You did say there were bears,” she muttered.

David was not impressed by the jest. “I love Killian, you know I do, but this… it’s crazy, you know that, right?”

“Of course I know that!” The fact he would even suggest that _she_ wasn’t the one with all of her faculties in this situation was frustrating enough, but they both knew once Killian had set his mind on something he couldn’t be diverted. “It’s all the more reason he shouldn’t be doing this alone.”

Better they went together, that somebody was _with_ him while he explored all the tenets this road might take him down, so someone could pick up the pieces if he couldn’t stop from shattering. That was what they had always done for each other, what they would always do. And she refused to apologise for it.

“His brother died, David.” She knew she didn’t need to remind him, but felt she should. “And it was _awful_. So if there’s a chance any of this is going to get him a little closer to being okay with it then I have to try.”

For a long moment David was silent, arms folded and a frown creasing his brow, and eventually Emma stopped waiting for him to reply. She didn’t need his approval, she’d gotten this far in her life without worrying what another person thought and she wasn’t about to start now – she also thought she remembered seeing some rope out in Ruth’s garage with all of her gardening equipment. She reached for her coat; Killian would be waiting.

“Fine,” David said resolutely, “then I’m coming too.”

Emma scowled. “No, you’re not.”

“This isn’t negotiable,” he insisted, and hastened to continue before she could retort, “and I _know_ you can take care of yourself, it’s not for you – it’s for me, and Mom. Because, tough, you have people that worry about you now, and it’s important to me that you’re safe.”

_I just thought you’d want somewhere quiet to study_, he had said, the afternoon he and Ruth had arrived at the group home and asked if she wanted to spend the weekend in their house. It had followed a rather terse encounter between the pair of them at the library, in which she’d asked the nice but lanky boy from school in no uncertain terms to _fuck off_, and let her get on with her damn calculus.

_Would you like that_, Ruth had asked, kindly; _somewhere quiet to study?_

That was a year ago now. She still felt something warm and soft in her gut when she thought of the bed as hers, of the desk as hers, of the little room at the top of the Nolan house _hers_. She’d given up on such notions a long, long time ago – and yet it had crept up on her when she was least expecting it, in the form of Ruth and David Nolan asking her politely what colour wallpaper she would prefer for the bedroom. _Her_ bedroom.

It meant all she could do was smile when she thought of David wanting to _protect_ her. She didn’t need protecting, but she liked that he wanted to try.

“Does that big strong attitude work on Mary Margaret?”

David immediately flushed beet red, and Emma felt she’d disguised her own pleasure well enough with the tease.

He recovered quickly. “I’m not sure – why, does yours work on Killian?” 

Immediately, she fixed him with an unimpressed look, before shrugging on her coat and lifting what she’d already gathered.

“Why are you doing this?” David asked, as he followed her across the landing. “Indulging this – fantasy?”

_We’ve all got ghosts here._

_Are you making fun of me?_

He’d been there for her long before she ever thought she’d find a place like the Nolan house.

He deserved her time, and her kindness; and more than anything else, she was happy to give it.

-/-

** Present Day **

The path leading up to the manor had become completely overgrown, the hedges on either side wild and unruly, reaching for each passerby with clinging, thorny limbs. The usual lush greenery of the entrance had become discoloured and frail, and the pure white exterior of the house had been stained by years of age and negligence. Ivy crawled up the pillars by the front door, creeping out across the brickwork like a slowly spreading sickness, and as Killian mounted the steps at the entrance he almost tripped, a tile underneath his right foot ripping clean away the moment he placed some weight on it.

He was beginning to think Regina didn’t even live there anymore – the Regina _he_ knew would never have let the house that brought so much pride to her family fall into such disrepair, but the waitress at Granny’s had been clear enough. Regina Mills had remained at that address for the last five years, even after the passing of her father.

Killian would have liked to have been a better support for her at the time, or at least offered some condolences; nineteen was far too young to lose a parent. Unfortunately, the fact of the matter was he didn’t find out until several months after the fact, and felt then to drag her back to the moment of its happening just so he could pay his respects would be selfish, and unkind. It had been done enough times to him up to almost two years after Liam’s passing, and he would have hated to wish that kind of prolonged sadness upon Regina. Especially since she had always been prone to such periods of dysphoria on her own.

He raised a hand to the brass knocker and rapped it loudly three times.

At first, he was met with only stillness. Nothing stirred inside the house, at least not that he could hear, and not that he could make out through the frosted glass panes on either side of the door. He decided to knock again.

Just when he was about to lift the brass a third time, the door was suddenly wrenched open with force and he darted backwards instinctively – only to be met with the fierce glare of an intensely irate Regina Mills. She looked much as he remembered, tucked into a dark purple blouse and a black skirt, dark hair framing her face with her characteristic perfect precision. Older, but just as vibrant as she had been the last time, and just as poised.

As soon as it appeared the fury melted away, to be replaced with what Killian could only describe as mild interest, flavoured with a dash of displeasure.

“Oh,” she said, with a decided amount of disappointment. “It’s you.”

Killian’s eyebrows climbed up to his hairline.

“Expecting the Queen, were we?” 

“Somebody with a greater propensity for courtesy, certainly,” she scoffed, drumming her sharp fingernails on the doorframe. “Most visitors call ahead these days.”

At this Killian merely spread his hands, and Regina stared at him for a few long moments. He had the distinct impression that he was being sized up, as her gaze drifted from his boots up to his hair, then flickered out into the street behind him, almost – almost _warily_. Her attention was back on him before he could question her on it.

“You better come inside.”

Regina disappeared through the doorway and left it open for him to follow, so after a split-second to gather his wits Killian followed her inside.

The inside of the manor, if possible, looked to be in even greater disarray than the outside.

The wallpaper inside the foyer was beginning to peel from the corners, curling sadly away and baring damp plaster out into the air. Dust and mothballs were starting to amass in the corners of the room, and the flowers that had once stood in symmetry atop the end tables on either side of the entryway to the next room had long since dropped and wilted. Killian could see through to the dining table, stacked with cartons of takeout, juice boxes, and from what he could tell, a baking tray of – apple turnovers?

The clicking of Regina’s heels led him to the left so he didn’t linger to find out, instead stepping through into what once had been the sitting room. The sofas remained, but the old television had been taken out and a large, wooden desk had been brought to the centre of the room; Killian’s jaw almost dropped at what lay atop it.

Vials and vials of strange coloured liquids, stacks of spices, herbs and greenery herded into neat little piles, and mountains of equipment covered every inch. He could make out measuring cylinders, Erlenmeyer flasks (some bubbling, some still), and a boiling flask sat poised above the flame from a blood red candle near the edge of the desk. The steam from whatever fizzled inside that flask was being captured by yet another vessel, spilling into a long, metal tube which emptied into an inky black flagon. An ancient, yellowed tome lay open at the centre, its pages marked with age and stains of various shades, and Killian could spot a crude diagram which matched the skeleton of equipment gathering materials for the vessel at the end.

Regina had gone immediately to the receptacle boiling above the candle, leaning in closer to inspect its contents with a critical eye. The liquid hissed loudly, spitting a few droplets out of the top and Regina scowled, immediately blowing out the candle.

“You made me lose my concentration.”

“I take it,” Killian mused, as he flicked a fingernail against a sour, yellow coloured bottle, which had what he could only compare to three bulging eyeballs floating in its contents staring back at him, “that you started believing in magic?”

“You and I are cut from the same cloth, Killian Jones. That much was always clear.” She dropped a perfectly manicured nail down onto the open page of the book, skimming its contents with a sigh. “We aren’t like David and Mary Margaret. Blithering, diffident clowns. _I_ know what I saw that night, I don’t have to think twice.”

_Killian – Killian, don’t –!_

“Sometimes I wish I could forget.”

“I don’t.” She shot him a sharp look. “Our memories are our gift. Someone has to carry the truth.”

_The truth_, Killian decided, _did not need carrying_. It had enough power on its own.

“It’s put you on quite the path,” he observed, gesturing to her equipment. “I didn’t realise you’d become a practitioner.”

“I… dabble,” Regina demurred, but Killian could see she did more than that. She was far from the supernatural sceptic she had been while they were at school. Once she noticed his gaze lingering on the open book with the worn, heavy pages, her expression lit up – something akin to smugness overtook her then, pride in a discovery. There was a twinkle in her eye he had scarce seen outside of her pleasure at an exceedingly good takedown of a bully that had deserved it.

“After my father passed away, I found some unexpected treasures in the family mausoleum,” she supplied, running her finger down the edge of one page, but angling her body so he might lean in closer and take a look. Regina had always liked to show off her toys. “From what I could surmise, my own mother didn’t even realise it was there. It’s a book of spells, of sorts, of wicca practices. It –”

“It’s a book of shadows,” Killian realised, as he caught a look at a marking scratched into the corner of the page.

Regina blinked, surprised. “How did you know that?”

It was amazing – he’d never been able to take a look at one up close, in his experience he’d found witches to be exceedingly secretive about what was decidedly a personal journey through spirituality. He had spent some time with a coven in Pennsylvania not too long ago, but they had soon grown tired of his unending curiosity and politely asked that he observe them no longer.

The page Regina had open was to an awareness potion, designed to broaden the senses and open the mind to greater influences than it could ordinarily perceive. Whether it worked or not remained to be seen; he had found that much of what purported to be ‘witchcraft’ was as much placebo as it was genuine mysticism. The turquoise liquid she had removed from above the candle appeared to be an attempt at brewing the potion – the first or the last of many, he could not tell.

“I thought a book of shadows needed to be burnt once its witch passed on?”

“Traditionally, yes,” she mused, eyes narrowing as she surveyed him. “That’s… what my research has indicated.”

Killian skimmed the plants and herbs she had strewn around on her desk, spotting what he was looking for quickly. After removing two needle thin leaves of rosemary, he dropped them inside the flask and set it back on its place on the stand. Then, he lit the crimson candle underneath. The liquid began to bubble, slowly changing in colour from a teal shade to something far duller, and bluer. The steam began to drift into the tube above it, and when Killian heard the flagon begin to let out a satisfying _hiss_ he knew he had achieved the correct consistency.

Regina had watched all of this with interest. A flicker of her dark eyes to the crude diagram in the book suggested she realised a beat later than he had that he had given her the desired outcome for the brew.

“Just what _have_ you been doing with yourself for the past five years?”

Killian merely lifted his shoulder in a shrug. “There’s never enough rosemary.”

She let the comment slide with an arched eyebrow that suggested she would soon worm the truth out of him.

“I suppose you’re back in town because of David’s deluded ramblings.”

This surprised him, especially given her clear status as a believer. “You think he imagined it?”

Regina scoffed. “I _know_, for a fact, that he’s spent five years roiling in guilt over what happened to Emma. I’m surprised it took this long to materialise into a phantom at the end of his bed.” She hesitated, and Killian waited; people always felt more compelled to fill silence with what they knew. “But there _is_ something happening. Look at this.”

With a wave that was more of confidence that he would follow than invitation, she marched across the sitting room to a writing desk wedged into the corner. It was covered with what Killian quickly realised was a map, mostly depicting the east coast. Scarlet lines ran across it in circular motions, tracing shapes into the continent.

“These markings, here –” she traced one with a fingertip, “are ley lines. Spirit roads. They’re often considered areas of great spiritual alignment, even –”

“I know what ley lines are, Regina.”

She pursed her lips. “Then you’ll know that Storybrooke sits at a convergence of two lines.” Her finger landed with a _tap_ on the marker for the town. “Which means only one thing – an abundance of paranormal energy. I often observe and measure the trends in the surrounding area, spikes in electromagnetic readings, irradiated areas, the like.”

Killian grinned. “Like a ghost cartographer.”

Despite herself, a similar smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Something like that, yes. They’re fascinating to document, and a key to me unlocking the secrets in my book.” Her expression turned more serious. “But recently, my readings have been incredibly unusual. Far greater than I’ve observed before. The only thing I can surmise is _something_ is coming – or _changing_. Something big.”

It couldn’t be a coincidence. David’s reports of the strange goings on that Ruby had corroborated, and a spike in some kind of supernatural energy around town? It all pointed to one thing, it had to. The only true ghost story that Storybrooke didn’t even know it had.

“And Brooke House?” The excitement in Regina’s expression slowly faded away, and she averted her eyes. Something far more sobering overcame her, but he had to know. She spent enough time in the woods. “Have you seen it?”

“No.” Killian tried to mask his disappointment, and on noticing this, she hastened to continue. “But then… I haven’t gone looking.”

He nodded mutely; the day already felt so long. As he paused for a moment to check his phone he realised he had two missed calls from David, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to talk to the man now – he was thinking about ley lines, and curses, and objects you had no sense losing and sounds you had no right hearing. Everything felt so different and yet so paralyzingly the same, and he wasn’t sure what to do with himself next.

Well, he knew what he _should_ do.

Regina had walked back to her workstation and shut the book with a heavy _thud_, and it hauled him back to the present. He then found himself considering mountains of takeout containers and the dilapidated foyer he had walked through of the once grand Mills mansion. Regina neatened up all of her ingredients with an eager hand, and he recognised in an instant that they had all changed the night Emma disappeared – it had just taken a little longer to manifest itself in her.

Mary Margaret had run away; Regina, apparently, had run right into it.

“When was the last time you ate a proper meal?”

Regina dismissed him with a wave of a hand. “I eat.”

“Something that didn’t come out of a box?”

“I bake,” she insisted hotly, and at his blank look she straightened her blouse and tried to look nonchalant. Killian remembered the tray of apple turnovers he had spied through the hallway. “It helps me relax.”

Killian gritted his teeth; this was no way to live.

(Although he deigned not to own up to the amount of chow mein that had been consumed under blankets in the back of his car over the years.)

“I’ll come back round tomorrow, if that’s alright.” He framed it like he was asking permission, though they both knew he wasn’t. “And I’m bringing a _broom_.”

Regina seethed with indignance, but Killian shot her a glare that left little room for argument.

It was time they both stopped avoiding what came next.

Which meant only one thing for him: a visit to Brooke House.

-/-

** October 14 ** ** th ** ** 2014 – 5 Years Ago **

In order to help him retrace his steps through the north woods, Killian had used whatever he had to hand as markers to ensure he returned the correct way. In this case, ‘to hand’ referred to a roll of bright orange string they had been using at school to help decorate for Halloween, which he had been offhandedly aiding in due to Mary Margaret’s fervent request. He had objected enough to Emma in private, arguing why on _earth_ were they still celebrating the end of October in such a way now they were already seventeen, but he begrudgingly admitted that the work had proven its worth as he remembered the string he had hastily shoved in his pocket last Friday.

The trio – she, Killian and David – trudged through the brush, copper and gold leaves crunching loudly underfoot, pausing only for Killian to quickly search for the next marker to inform them which direction they should head in. Against the vermilion palette of the forest in the throes of the New England fall, they weren’t always the easiest to spot.

They stayed mostly in a ponderous, companionable quiet; Killian kept his keen focus on the path ahead, and David and Emma occasionally exchanged uneasy glances. Neither were quite sure what they would find once they reached the end of the proverbial trail. It was easy to fall into a rhythm of their boot prints upon the ground, and it gave Emma enough time to truly consider the kind of support she wanted to offer to their friend if it didn’t quite go his way.

“Have you thought about what you’d like to do for your birthday?”

Jerked out of her reverie, Emma shot David a reproachful look.

“You _know_ what I’d like to do. Nothing.”

David spread his hands. “You’re turning eighteen – that’s a big deal. An adult. Finally legally able to play the lottery, and I know how much that’s been killing you to wait for.”

“_Please_.”

“Or vote? Mary Margaret loves to vote. After the sheriff election last month she kept her ‘I Voted’ sticker on for two weeks.”

“Is _that_ what that was?” Killian remarked over his shoulder, hesitating to touch the tip of his finger to a piece of string wound around a nearby branch.

“You can also get married,” David continued, “file a lawsuit.”

“Join the army,” Killian offered.

“Get a tattoo.”

“Legally have sex in every state.”

This, Killian offered with a wink, and David thumped him heavily on the arm. “_Hey_.”

“Guys, forget it,” Emma laughed, “you know how I feel about birthdays, I don’t want to do anything. Maybe grab some popcorn and watch a film with you guys and Ruth – maybe Mary Margaret, Regina.”

“So, the same thing we do every week?” David sighed.

She shrugged. “Suits me.”

“Wait.”

Killian raised a hand and they halted obediently, only for Emma’s gaze to land on exactly what had caught his just moments before. Through the trees, around fifty or so yards away, a house could be spotted amongst the pines – if the way Killian had tensed was any indication, it was the one he believed to be Brooke House.

Emma and David broke into a jog to keep up with Killian, dashing rapidly closer to the old structure, and as they drew up to the front she took a moment to observe just what they had been led to.

The house was hugely run down, dilapidated and crooked, the white brick in the bulk of most of the structure long since dirtied by the clutches of nature, and its wooden fascia rotting in places as it oozed damp and sap. It was small, just two stories with an attic window protruding from the gable, with notable portions of the roof visible where branches had grown in between the tiles and, in some cases, pushed them free – the ground was littered with a few shattered slates on either side. Most of the windows were either cracked or missing panes altogether, and the ivy scaling the walls gave it the air of something reclaimed by the earth. The build was distinctly Victorian in style, like a townhouse, almost; and that very fact made its standing there deeply incongruous with the miles of wood surrounding them. She had been expecting a cabin or something far more rustic, a holidaymaker’s home fit for an unfair prank, but this – this was something different.

An entrance on the left-hand side hung with a wooden arch, perfectly circular and its edges reaching almost to the ground, providing a canopy over the stern, chestnut door. It was already open.

As Killian had said, a sign hung above the doorway underneath the canopy, yellowed with age, but the writing still clear enough to make out. _Brooke House_.

She could see why Killian hadn’t wanted to enter alone.

After a moment just to take it all in, she felt him reach for her hand. Squeezing just once, she tried to make her smile as encouraging as possible.

David led the way, a sense of trepidation gripping Killian, but after she tugged on their connected hands his boots spurred into motion and they began mounting the steps. They trod carefully, the wood mostly rotted away and creaking ominously underfoot, and the door let out a deep, yawning groan as David pushed it open wider. 

The entrance opened to reveal a dark hallway, the air thick and musty and immediately scratched the back of Emma’s throat, so much so that she made sure her mouth was clamped shut even as it wanted to slacken with wonder. On their immediate left was a narrow staircase, crooked and tired with a few steps crumbling away to reveal a gaping blackness underneath. In the dim light she could just about see through to the rear of the house, and spotted what looked to be an old kitchenette and table, but Killian was switching on his torch and leading her out through another door on the right which had fallen from its hinges and now dangled dangerously into the next room. It was clearly an old sitting room, several large but indeterminate items of furniture covered with large, white sheeting, and an antique coffee table resting in the centre. The curtains were of a delicate white lace material which had dulled with age, now moth-eaten and draping miserably in front of the windows. Emma could see out into the woods, but the trees looked far more sinister from this angle - she wasn’t sure what to make of it. 

She was certainly wrong about one thing; this was no holidaymaker’s getaway. Clearly nobody had lived in this house for years. 

While Emma found her attention drawn to the more barren features of the house, a few moments after they entered the sitting room Killian abruptly released her hand with a cry, and darted towards the back of the room. There, hidden behind a large piece she could only assume was a sofa of some kind, was a large toolbox sat beside two long planks of wood. The fading wallpaper had also been peeled off from that corner of the room pulling outwards, baring the wood paneling underneath. Some of the dirt had been scrubbed away with clear intent, and an abandoned bucket, sponge and pair of gloves had been left underneath it. 

Killian immediately scrambled for the lock on the toolbox, wrenching it open. 

“This is Liam’s,” he confirmed what Emma had already suspected, as she exchanged a surprised look with David. “_Look_. See?” He ripped off a battered photograph that had been taped just inside the lid, thrusting it up to show her. As Emma peered closer she could just about make out the image of two young boys and an older woman with her arm around each. From the photos she had seen of Liam Jones the taller boy could just as easily be him, and the lines of Killian’s dimpled grin could be traced in the smaller of the two. 

“He was here. He was right - about all of it. He’d been working on Brooke House _just_ like he said.” 

Exaggerated, deluded, fiction; that was what she had been told. The ramblings of an unfortunate young man who believed in ghosts, yet the evidence was unmistakable. At least at some stage, Liam Jones had been in this house - he had brought his tools, he had started his work, and he had just as soon abandoned it without a word. 

And then his car had been found at the bottom of a ravine. 

“If you’ll forgive me for saying, Killian,” David began slowly, taking it all in with caution, “it doesn’t look like Liam got much work done.” 

Aside from that one, tiny corner, it didn’t look like much of the room (nay, the _house_) had been touched at all. 

“But how could they have _missed_ this?” Emma frowned, stepping back over to the window again to look out. She thought she could spot one of Killian’s orange strings tied to a nearby trunk. “_Everyone_ was looking for Brooke House after he died. You can’t tell me almost every resident of Storybrooke, which includes you, Killian, just so happened to skip right past a place that fit the exact description he’d given to anyone who cared to listen?” She shook her head, doubtful. “This has to be some sort of trick, or - prank.” 

“Anybody could have gotten hold of Liam’s toolbox,” David added. “Then left it here for you to find.”

In a manner that slightly irked her at first, Killian didn’t bother acknowledging their speculations; he was rifling through the toolbox instead and once she noticed, Emma immediately felt a small wave of guilt wash over her. How it got there or not, Killian unequivocally believed this toolbox belonged to the brother he had lost over four years ago. He didn’t need their suppositions at the moment, just a little time to process. 

“Hey,” she said quietly, after crossing over to the corner and kneeling beside him, “are you okay?”

Killian let out a long breath, a hard crease in his brow. “I didn’t think I’d see any of this stuff again. Lost, I’d assumed, when I was moved out of our apartment. I was only twelve.” This, he offered her with a wry smile, patting a hand on her wrist to show he knew she was there. “I didn’t know _what_ I’d want to keep or throw away back then when all I wanted was Liam home again.” 

David shuffled awkwardly by the doorway. “I’m gonna go check out the kitchen.”

As if that was the first statement to properly penetrate his reverie, Killian shook his head and straightened. He stuffed the photograph into the pocket of his jacket and was about to close the toolbox again when Emma suddenly spotted something underneath the haphazard placement of the tools. She halted his movements, before carefully moving the dusty implements out of the way. Folded neatly underneath all of them was a single sheet of paper, worn along its edges as if it had been opened and re-folded many times, and Emma slipped it out. 

In the wild moment of its discovery Emma had thought it might be something significant; a letter for Killian, a note about the house, a cry for help, but she sternly admonished herself when it was revealed to be a couple of simple doodles etched in pencil onto the paper. This wasn’t a movie, this was Killian’s _life_. In the real world you didn’t find suicide notes four years too late buried in toolboxes in creepy old houses. 

She threw Killian an apologetic look, but he took the paper from her anyway and slipped it into his pocket with the photograph. It was still a piece of Liam - Emma had never known the elder Jones, but he clung to every inch of this room like a spectre. She could scarcely imagine why Killian could even bear to walk among it. 

As one they decided to stand and try to catch up with David, but when they peeked inside the old kitchen he was nowhere to be found. Killian cast a doubtful glance at the rickety staircase with the splintered bannister, but Emma shrugged; he could have easily grown bored and wanted to rise to the second storey of the house. With an overly flamboyant bow, Killian gestured for her to go first, to which she rolled her eyes and obliged, albeit slowly. 

The stairway creaked rather ominously beneath her, and she eyed the steps rotted away with an air of unease - it would be just her luck for one of them to give way underneath her and leave her leg hanging amongst whatever wildlife had likely chosen to take up residence under the staircase until the boys could haul her back up again. As a result she made every effort to test her weight on each step before committing to it, growing in confidence the higher she ascended. 

One of Killian’s hands rested near the small of her back, gently, as if ready to catch her if she lost her balance. Despite the circumstances the thought shot a little thrill right through her.

If possible, the second floor was narrower than the first, and they had to move single file as they began taking slow steps deeper into the house. A discomfiting stillness had settled, like the farther they walked from the entrance, the more disconnected they became from the forest they had travelled through to reach it. Emma could scarcely hear the distant rustle of nature now, only the grinds and groans of the old structure, of the wind whistling through shattered panes and withered, rotting wood. 

Killian walked closely behind her and she felt his sharp intake of breath, as if readying himself to speak, when a loud _creak_ rang out from one of the bedrooms just off the hallway. Their eyes instantly snapped in that direction.

“David?” Emma called out. 

There was no response, from David or otherwise, other than a second groan of old wood, like smart shoes upon dusty floorboards - at least, that was the mirage that her mind had instantly conjured, although she did not know from where it had arisen. With startling clarity she could picture the exact shade of the worn leather, pacing back and forth between the walls of the bedroom. Almost unbidden, her pulse began to quick as she kept her gaze fixed on the closed door. 

“That was the noise,” Killian murmured, and she distantly registered he was speaking from close to her ear, “that was the noise that made me leave the trail, and find the house.” 

Another _rasp_. 

It did prompt the image of the old sign of Gold’s Pawnbrokers, swaying back, and forth, like an ancient metronome of Main Street.

There was something, some _feeling_ or sensation that lingered near the place she drew breath that told her it wasn’t David, that brought the vision of soles on boards, that had her heart fluttering with each iteration of the noise, groaning, scraping, tugging her towards it like it had a fist at her breast as she inched steadily closer –

Only when Killian squeezed her hand in one quick, reassuring motion did she realise she must’ve reached for his unconsciously. 

It broke the spell.

Heat rose from her collarbone and instantly she dropped it, throwing a grateful look over the shoulder. _This was ridiculous_. Again, she felt a mild irritation for her tendency to fall back on the conventions that cinema had spent her whole life convincing her were truth, and instead decided, _hell_, and marched headfirst to the source of the sound. 

“Emma, wait -” Killian gaped, alarmed, but she had already thrown open the door. 

Only later did she consider that doing anything in Brooke House with a show of force would be unwise, if not just as a result of the aged skeleton that the structure was built on, but luckily other than the handle clanging noisily against the wall of the bedroom, no great calamity occurred. 

Instead, the door had swung open to reveal a completely bare room, other than a spinning wheel turning slowly in the corner, creaking with each full rotation it completed. For a moment Emma watched, astounded, as it seemed to move on its own, an ancient pedal rising and falling off the ground in time with its soft and measured pace; but the explanation surely lay in the missing glass panes of the window, and the gentle breeze drifting in from the outside. 

Eerie as it was, there was nothing supernatural about it. 

“Gods, that’s creepy,” Killian muttered, and Emma resisted the urge to laugh. 

She crossed over to it and stopped the mechanism with one hand on the wheel, the pedal halting in midair as she did so. Much like the rest of the house, it was made of an old, dusty wood, and could do with a polish, but otherwise the apparatus remained largely in act. In sporadic piles beneath it, small strands of what looked like _straw_ had been scattered about. 

After Killian pointed it out, Emma raised her shoulder in an amused shrug. “Maybe they were trying to make -” 

A flurry of movement in front of her face cut her off, and with a cry of fright she fell back from the window, limbs flailing reflexively against the sudden onslaught and she stumbled straight into Killian, who instantly tried to steady her with two firm hands on her upper arms. Hidden in the dark beside the wheel, a single crow had been nesting and, disturbed by her movements, had shot into the air with an indignant _squawk_ and fluttered to the window. It hopped there for barely a second before disappearing out into the open air. 

“Are you alright?” Killian tugged her round to look him in the eye, searching hers for any signs of injury. 

Emma willed her racing heart to slow, immediately letting out a breathy laugh of embarrassment; she’d been a wreck ever since they entered the damn house, and she felt completely spun off her normal axis. _She_ was supposed to be the one with the level-head, her toes curled into the ground beneath them, rooting them. It had always been her job to catch Killian when his mind was wandering away with him, not the other way round. Instead his steady presence felt like the only thing keeping her from floating away from herself. 

She let out a shaky breath. “I bet you’re regretting asking me to be the one to come with you at this point.” 

Killian only shook his head. “No,” he said, with a soft smile. “But we should find David.”

David, right. The third member of their party apparently still wandering the dark halls of the house. 

Although the thundering of footsteps from the hallway behind them appeared to somewhat account for him. 

“Was someone yelling?” David called, alarmed. After he poked his head around the door and found the pair of them a little shaken, but fine, he let out a noise of relief. “Jeesh. I was convinced the roof had come down on you or something. This place is seconds from collapsing.” 

“Nothing like that,” Emma said, noticing she was still clinging tightly to the front of Killian’s coat, and instantly releasing it. “But maybe we should go.”

The statement was directed mostly at Killian, this was his journey from the off - but she wasn’t sure what else he was expecting to find. Whether this was the house Liam had spoken about or not, it seemed clear that most of his time within it had been spent in the room with the most evidence of his work, the sitting room at the front of the ground floor. There were only two other rooms that she could see on the landing, and David informed them they were just another bedroom and what looked like a study or library. 

Killian seemed to weigh up his options, a tic jumping in his jaw as he looked between them. 

After a few quiet moments he let out a long, agitated sigh; she could sense the source of his frustration. Needing to let something go and not being ready to was an emotion she was more than familiar with.

“Maybe we should.”

“I did find something else we could try and take a peek at,” David suggested, perhaps detecting his reluctance, “looked like the door to an attic or something.”

At the look of relief that flashed across Killian’s features, Emma immediately agreed for them and followed David out of the room. At the end of the landing, near the back of the house, he pointed out a square wooden panel in the ceiling that looked like it could be removed, with a metal ring barely wider than a finger attached to it. With some difficulty, the two taller boys scrabbled at the edges of the panel and managed to tug it out of its slot. As it fell, a rickety ladder slid down to the floor.

In an overt show of faux gentlemanliness, they both suggested Emma go first. 

Rolling her eyes, she began to climb as gingerly as she could, reasonably assured in the knowledge that if something of it collapsed or she fell back, she would probably have her fall cushioned by either or both of them.

She needn’t have worried. After reaching the top safely, she could barely spot anything through the darkness; the only light dappled in from one single window at the other end of the attic, and quickly pulled her torch out to have a look around. 

“Oh,” David said, once he’d climbed up to join her, “I was kinda convinced this would be something a little more exciting.” 

Like the bedroom, the attic was mostly bare, save for some odd pieces of furniture scattered about, most covered in sheets. A chaise longue, a few crates and a dusty bookcase stuffed to the brim, with volumes toppling out of its edges and accumulating in piles around it, and onto a large writing desk next to it. Also atop the desk sat a selection of vials, some with contents of rather startling shades, a few candles, and several sheets of yellowed paper curling at the edges. 

In pieces on the floor, a glass photo frame had shattered. The shards crunched underfoot as Emma crossed the room to the bookcase, lifting a finger to brush the spines of some of the old covers. Most were nondescript, no titles to speak of, and the rest had faded too lightly for her to make them out. 

An audible _clink_ sounded behind her, and Emma turned to watch Killian lifting the faded photograph from underneath the glass, the fragments falling back onto the floor. It was an old sepia image of a young woman with a heart shaped face, gazing warmly into the lens.

“Who is she?” she peered a little closer at the image. 

Killian shrugged. “Maybe she lived here. _Somebody_ had to have lived here, at some stage.” It certainly seemed that way. Houses didn’t just sprout from the earth, they had to be built, their foundations pressed into the ground. A spinning wheel didn’t appear from nothing, and neither did the other small effects they had found in its halls. “‘Beauty’,” Killian read aloud from the back of the photo, written in long, cursive script. 

“Got that right,” David mused. 

There wasn’t much else to see; the boys turned to go. 

Only Emma hesitated, something catching her eye on the opposite side of the ladder; it was hidden deep in the slope of the roof, so tucked away that she almost hadn’t spotted it, but now her eyes were adjusting she could easily make out the outline of two small doors for what looked to be some kind of armoire. The doors were intricately decorated, with dark and curved painted strokes, twisting around the two handles like vines about a tree trunk.

Something in the depths of her gut stirred; like she had just heard an achingly familiar song and was overcome with a desire to move to it, the pull of something paralysingly sweet and sad beckoning for her to move closer.

She wanted to know what was inside. 

Or whatever was inside wanted to know _her_.

Emma took just two halting steps towards it –

Before Killian called her name from the ladder, softly, and broke the enchantment. 

She blinked back at him. “Uh, sorry?”

“I said we’re going,” he repeated, “You were right - and it’s getting late. We can always come back tomorrow.” 

Emma hesitated, her attention still captured by the wardrobe in the corner of the attic. Killian misinterpreted her pause for a different kind of uncertainty. 

“If you want to, that is.” 

“Of course,” she replied immediately, the willing of her legs to start moving towards the ladder taking an unusual amount of effort. “As often as you want.” 

Even as they finally departed the house to head back through the woods, the dimness outside heralding the approach of dusk and a brisk warning that soon they would run out of daylight, Emma could still feel her heart hammering when she thought of that wardrobe, shut behind the attic door that the boys had carefully lifted closed. 

Something remarkable laid in wait inside it; she could feel it in her bones.

And she was desperate to find out what. 

-/-

** Present Day **

The orange string had by now turned a murky brown against the surge of time, but Killian was still able to retrace the skeleton of the path he had taken the others down, veering off from the White Pine Trail in the north woods toward where Brooke House had stood. Dusk was rapidly approaching, and the further he walked, the more he considered that he should have waited until morning – should have returned David’s calls – should have left the ghosts that had haunted Liam Jones alone a long, long time ago.

The sky was beginning to turn from a pastel pink to midnight blue, and he had brought just two things with him for protection against the dark; the torch lit at his side, and the dagger. Its intricate, curved edges glittered dangerously with every touch of light.

Brooke House stood, as he had imagined it would, exactly where he had left it. Cracked brickwork, shattered windows and empty hallways.

Silence lay steadily at its feet.

Killian was done playing games.

He marched up the rotted steps and pushed the front door open, allowing the torch to flicker around to catch any unexpected surprises. Conceding that the hallway was clear, he entered the sitting room - there, lying untouched on the floor as if he had walked straight into the past, lay the spirit board that Regina had volunteered all those years ago. The planchette sat a few feet away, beside two discarded plastic bottles of water. An old scarlet scarf, an Apollo chocolate bar wrapper. Everything, exactly as they had left it. 

Killian turned to the remainder of the room; dark and vast, he did his best to bring himself up to his full height, even as his heart began to thump a steady beat against his chest. 

He brandished the dagger in front of him. 

“Alright,” he announced to the empty walls, “I’m here. You’ve got my full attention.” He swallowed. “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

To bring him back to Storybrooke, to drag him right back under again. There were no questions as to motive; ever since he had received that voicemail from David he had known the purpose of it all like he had known the way his soul had yearned for home. Adjusting his grip, he stayed alert for any sign of movement. He could feel his hand beginning to sweat where it grasped tightly onto the metal handle.

“So all of this nonsense can end,” he continued with vehemence, “Ruby, David, the town - you leave them out of this. D’you hear me?” 

For a beat, his words turned to ghosts. Fell on the dead ears of phantom listeners, but then - something changed in the room, an almost atmospheric shift. He felt the hair at the nape of his neck begin to flutter, warm air brushing it away and he froze. Something moved along the curve of his shoulder, like a fingernail, lightly scratching against his leather jacket. The scent of wildflowers and old pines assaulted him, the forest pressing a gentle kiss to the side of his neck and after a moment he thought he heard her laugh, falling like raindrops from a great distance. 

He closed his eyes, willed it into truth. 

_Don’t tell me - it’s hot cocoa, with cinnamon, and you’re about to hand it over._

A voice came from behind him, and it felt like the slow draw of a fingertip up his spine; velvet, intimate, but soft enough to make him want to squirm away.

“Hello, Killian.” 

The _otherness_ of it slammed into him with the force of a freight train. It was too deep, too slow, too much.

_Killian - Killian, don’t -!_

Gathering all the courage he could muster, he whirled around.

And the sight of her stole the breath from his lungs. 

There, in a white gown that had been dirtied by the muddied forest floor, her blonde tresses crowned by a circlet of dark, withering petals, and her eyes a storm of jade and gentle fury, stood Emma Swan.

The corner of her lip curled upwards, so familiar and so alien, and she began to take slow, elegant steps towards him. A predator stalking her prey. 

Killian forgot how to breathe. 

“So good of you to finally come and see me.”


	3. 3 - those who listen intently

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi there! it's been a hot minute since this has been updated, I realise that. the good news is this - this fic is now FINISHED. I'm completely back on track now, and I'll be posting a chapter a week as I initially promised starting today. I'd firstly again like to thank HollyeLeigh (@hollyethecurious on tumblr) for creating the wonderful art that inspired this fic, and then I'd like to thank every single reader who has left a comment so far! Thank you so much for all being my cheerleaders, I really hope you like where this story ends up. Now - enjoy!

** November 22nd, 2014 - 5 Years Ago **

Everybody stared. They _always_ stared.

But this was not a new truth for Killian Jones.

With an almost supernatural precision, hallways would part as he turned into them, with students pressing themselves against their lockers or the walls of the corridor in order to put as much distance between he and them as possible. Hushed whispers were passed from lips to ears, poorly concealed by the palm of a hand, and turning to nothing but air if he should so much as glance their way. He could feel their eyes on the back of his neck, prickling into his spine in a way that was so familiar, but now with one crucial difference; where before he had suffered their oppressive curiosity about him, now a fearful trepidation had taken its place.

He used to be the boy whose brother had committed suicide.

Now he was the boy who had murdered their classmate, and dumped the body in the woods.

Of course, nobody said anything out loud. Nothing was _proven_. But they all had watched him be pulled from class enough times by Principal Nemo with Sheriff Humbert at his side, only to return a few hours later, perhaps looking a little paler than before. They had all gone home, reported these details diligently to their parents, who had begun to form their own presumptions about just _why_ he was of such special interest, and before long near on every student at Storybrooke High had been advised to give him a wide berth.

The only concrete thing the Sheriff had been able to throw at him was a piece of orange string they had found in the north woods, smeared with his blood and found a few feet from a beanie that the DNA tests they had sent for had correctly identified as Emma's. Killian had explained, not untruthfully, that he had cut himself many times as they searched the woods that night after Emma disappeared; and that she _had_ been wearing a beanie that night, yes, so she must have lost it.

Circumstantial. That was all it was. And Humbert was getting desperate.

Not that Killian cared.

Not about the kids who always stared but would never meet his eye, not about the good cop, bad cop routine with which Humbert was trying to wile the truth out of him, not about Archie's sympathetic looks or the absolute spitting fire he was starting to receive from adults on the street.

Emma was gone.

There was a yawning, gaping cavern in his heart which yearned to hear her laugh, to watch her smile, to tug her into his arms just one more time.

But she was gone, and it was his fault. And now he had to find a way to live with that.

As he stepped sullenly down the hallway he was suddenly wrenched from his reverie by a sharp pain in his shoulder, crying out as he was hurled into the lockers beside him. His backpack slipped from his shoulder onto the floor as the movement knocked the wind out of him and he winced, but tried to pull his attention to whomever had shoved him.

Leroy stood in the centre of the corridor, bristling and agitated, his face flushed bright red with menace and fury. A few other students had gathered, forming a circle of onlookers around them.

“I _liked_ Emma,” Leroy spat, “she was a great girl. And it’s about time you really got what's coming to you for what you did to her.”

Killian gritted his teeth.

“I didn’t _do_ anything,” he seethed. “Come near me one more time and I’ll knock the sense out of you, got it?”

“I’m not afraid of you, sister.”

Killian straightened, and tried to ignore the throbbing across his shoulders from where he had crashed into the lockers. What Leroy Arenberg did not know was that right now Killian was an oil spill on water, just waiting for someone to light the match. He had been simmering at the edges for weeks, an ember slowly fanning into a flame for every moment that Emma wasn’t _here,_ and he practically begged nightly for ignition. He longed for a fight; perhaps he deserved one. Leroy was bigger than he, but he didn’t have the same smoulder in his bones.

“Well, maybe you should be.”

They had both stood ready to pounce on the other as a wave of excited anticipation rippled through the onlookers, when a taller boy pushed his way through the crowd and out between the pair of them.

“What’s going on here?” David snapped, looking between the pair of them, before taking in Killian’s position by the lockers and Leroy’s arguably stronger stance in the centre of the corridor. It was easy to tell who had started it, just not who would finish it. David’s eyes narrowed at the stockier boy. “Did you–?”

“He deserves it,” Leroy growled, “he’s a monster.”

“Back off, Leroy,” David warned, “if you know what’s good for you.”

David had always been what Killian could never be; a well-liked and generous boy, a member of the track team but a good sport, polite to all of his teachers and kind to his classmates. He had garnered a lot of respect over his time at Storybrooke High, and a lot of sympathy after Emma had disappeared – everybody had known his mother had fostered her. He was as good as her brother, which meant nobody was particularly fond of upsetting him at that moment; and even less wanted to pick a fight.

Leroy included.

The boy grimaced, but eyed David with a begrudging deference.

“You should wise up, Nolan. He’s trouble.”

Leroy shoved his way back through the gathered students and stomped down the corridor. David then turned his ire to everyone else.

“Don’t you have places to be?”

With a start the crowd scattered, students fleeing his temper as quickly as they could manage.

Killian was furious. He couldn’t quite work out why. “I don't need your protection,” he snarled at David, “I could have taken him.”

He _wanted_ to. He _wanted_ to take him. To send him crashing into the ground and keep throwing punches until it didn’t hurt anymore. Until he didn’t want to cry anymore at the flowers and hopeful prayers the students at school had attached to Emma's untouched locker. Until he could erase her final scream from his nightmares for good.

_Killian – Killian, don’t—!_

“That’s not the point,” David was saying, “you shouldn’t have to. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” David had reached a hand out to him, and Killian ducked it in order to lift his rucksack. His heart was still thumping loudly in his chest, dangerous and greedy. “Just leave me alone, Dave.” He shoved roughly away from the lockers and began to walk away, but his body was still ablaze, ready for a fight. He finally swivelled on his heels and threw back at him, “Isn’t helping me what got us all into this mess in the first place?”

Unsurprisingly, David turned to molten fury; he caught up with Killian like lightning and once again he found himself pressed, albeit a little more gently, into the lockers, with David’s hands fisting in his shirt.

“Quit making this about _you_,” he spat. “We _all_ lost Emma. It's bad enough you’re letting them all think – you’re not _saying_ anything when they—” The boy winced, his face contorting with sadness, and the fire went right out of him. “We stick together, you got that? Like it or not I give a crap about you, Killian. You’re my friend. And Emma would never have forgiven me if I let you take a beating you don't deserve.”

He released him and Killian swallowed. A pregnant pause settled between the two of them, and Killian could feel the roar that had made its way to his fingertips beginning to ebb away.

“_Will_ never forgive you,” he corrected quietly. At David’s bemused look he continued. “Present tense. We're getting her back.”

David shut his eyes, before nodding firmly.

“Together.”

-/-

** Present Day **

Killian had spent much of the last few years enjoying the luxury of anonymity, in one of two ways. Either he walked the streets of cities that cared little for his story, for his purpose or his destination, blending into the palette of the populace and ensuring his identity was lost to the gaping jaws of a metropolis, or he lost himself in the complete opposite. He had skimmed across vast, rural savannahs, often going days without coming across another human being, relaxing in the ease of his own company. After years of constantly feeling under scrutiny in Storybrooke, first after he lost Liam and again after Emma, he had never wanted to undergo anything of the like again.

Of course, returning to Storybrooke had not been a factor in that particular fantasy.

And most who inhabited the town did so enjoy falling into old habits.

The early morning sky was beginning to turn from pink to white by the time Killian made his way back into the centre of Storybrooke. Weary, dismayed and in desperate need of rest, he trudged back through the woods with his torch held loosely at his side, and the dagger pressing against his chest from the inside pocket of his jacket with every step. He daren’t leave it behind, but it weighed heavily against him, the chill of the blade biting against his shirt.

A glance at his watch informed him it was barely nine in the morning, still healthily early for a Saturday, but Killian found himself vividly reminded of why he had been so desperate to avoid Main Street during more sociable hours – he felt vastly _observed _as he headed towards Granny’s, and the familiar sensation curled about his shoulders with a daunting persistence.

Some pointed, some muttered and tutted to their neighbours, but Killian tried to pay them no mind.

His mind was vexed by far greater quandaries than the gossiping of his long since forgotten neighbours.

_So good of you to finally come and see me_.

Those eyes; distant, jade – _hostile_.

Despite only the gentle breeze brushing down Main Street, Killian trembled.

He had wanted answers – he just hadn’t realised they could make him so desperately, desperately sad.

The door to Granny’s opened with the usual _jingle_, and Killian found himself immediately met with a steely glare from the proprietor, stood over a book of accounts behind the counter. His intention had been to ignore her completely and stumble up to his room, to try and catch a few hours of sleep before pondering his next move, but then he spotted Ruby at the end of the diner by the jukebox, lifting glasses from a now empty table and balancing them on her tray.

With a jolt he remembered their conversation from yesterday morning, and he made a beeline for her.

“Oh,” she said, letting out a short gasp once she noticed him at her elbow, “crap, you startled me. Everything alright?”

“I need to know what you saw.”

Ruby hesitated, a perfectly manicured hand hovering above a glass before she lifted it slowly onto the tray. “What are you talking about?”

He was tired, he was hungry, and he had been up all night. Killian didn’t have the patience for any more coyness from Storybrooke’s eccentric residents. It was about time somebody was _honest_ with him.

“You know what I’m talking about.”

Ruby wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Did you go looking for your house?”

_So good of you to finally come and see me_.

Killian’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “Aye.”

“And you found it?”

“Aye.”

Ruby finally turned to face him, features tight and schooled into something defensive, almost – hurt. “Then you _know_ what I saw. _Who_ I –” She bit her lip, shook her head and steered past him towards the counter.

“Ruby, please,” Killian followed her, careful to keep his voice low as he felt Granny’s beady eyes following him across the diner. “That’s not enough. I can’t help unless I know more about what I’m dealing with.”

The waitress’ lips parted, meeting his earnest gaze with one of her own, and Killian felt a modicum of guilt for pressuring her. Her reluctance abounded from her in waves, and she had been kind to him since he came back into town – it was perhaps the only kindness he had received for kindness’ sake in a long time, and not because of some shared history chequered with pain.

She was spared from providing him with any more information by the clatter of the shutters and the jangling of the bell as somebody entered the diner, and on instinct both of their eyes flickered towards the door. All thoughts of pulling a proper confession from Ruby fled his mind instantly once he recognised the entrants, a lump beginning to form in his throat.

David, and his mother – Ruth.

Ruth Nolan appeared far older than when he had last seen her, although he couldn’t place when exactly that might have been – she was softer at her edges, more frail of stature, and melancholy clung to the air around her with a vice like grip. Ruth, as he had known her, had been nothing but tenderness.

That, like everything else, had changed the night Emma disappeared.

They didn’t notice him immediately. Killian’s first compulsion was to beat a hasty retreat. To sneak out through the hallway and into the inn before they had a chance to realise he was there. It was better that way – they had likely come in for a drink, or some breakfast, and he felt no desire to intrude upon their time together. Even Ruby spared him a helpless look as she glanced between them. Against her own grandmother she would stand firm, but she couldn’t be a shield between he and all the town’s censure.

Killian made to back away quietly, but as he turned his left foot nudged a stool and the loud, sharp _scrape_ which ensued caught the momentary attention of most of the diners – including those that had just walked in the door.

David’s eyes widened as they landed on him, but Killian’s flickered quickly to the woman at his side; David did not react fast enough.

“I… hadn’t wanted to believe it,” Ruth spoke quietly, stepping around David as her dark eyes settled on Killian. He found himself completely unable to form words, panic rising in him like a wave as she took another step forward. With every painful second which passed, a sharpness seemed to form around her, as if she had been nothing but a blurry image before and was just now coming into focus. “When they said that you were back. I didn’t want it to be true.”

Killian swallowed, and all across his back and chest he felt warm. _Hot_. It was too hot. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t _think_.

“Mom, why don’t you wait outside?” David was saying, but the blood rushing from the base of Killian’s skull was loud, so loud, he could barely concentrate. One of David’s hands was resting on Ruth’s shoulder, tugging gently but firmly, trying to move her away. “Mom.”

“Haven’t you caused enough pain?” Ruth hissed, low and dangerous, and her eyes sparkled with the freshness of a grief he had given her. “Isn’t it enough?”

_No_, he wanted to shout, wanted to _scream_ so the dead could hear, _make me feel it. _

_Don’t tell me – it’s hot cocoa, with cinnamon, and you’re about to hand it over._

It’s _never_ enough.

“_Mom_,” David warned, and his arm curled around her waist protectively. The movement seemed to jolt Ruth out of her reverie, and although her eyes continued to spit molten fire, she allowed herself to be turned around and ushered slowly out of the door. The shutters clattered back into place behind her.

An awkward silence descended on the diner, as patrons slowly started to pick up their conversations again, not least because of the fierce glare David shot over that warned them not to remain spectators for any longer.

It was eerily familiar, that sense of David Nolan trying to shield him from prying eyes.

A whole newfound respect for David began to emerge; Killian hadn’t been able to look Ruth Nolan in the eye after it happened, but David lived with her, _loved_ her everyday, while keeping the truth they all knew locked away in a place no one ever touched. Now either that was a colossal level of control on his part, or he could compartmentalise even better than Mary Margaret.

“You didn’t answer my calls yesterday,” David said, and Killian’s ears pricked when he detected a hint of terseness in his tone. “Are you alright?”

“Aye, I’m sorry,” Killian replied. He’d all but forgotten the number of missed calls he’d allowed to pile up on his phone. All he really wanted to do right now was go to bed. “I got a little caught up.”

“Seeing Regina?”

Ah, there it was. A flicker of hurt crossed the other man’s features, and Killian felt a surge of guilt rush forth within him. They were made of such fragile things, he should have known better than to leave David hanging – he should have at least sent him a text, but he’d been just a little too self-involved. He had forgotten what it felt like to be beholden to someone.

Still, the idea that all he had to do was walk down the street for his every activity to be so meticulously reported, combined with the exhaustion already threatening to overwhelm him, had him far more irked than he probably had cause to be. Someone must have spotted him visiting the Mills residence and it had found its way back to David.

He clicked his tongue. “I see the neighbourhood watch is no less efficient these days.”

“I can understand you needing space, needing to re-adjust. But you’ve been leaving me on the sidelines since you got here, and now you’re using your time to see _her?_” David shook his head, fiercely aggrieved. “After the way she cut us out?”

Killian was almost surprised by the force of his remark. “So you’ve forgiven me for leaving, but not Regina for retreating?”

“You weren’t here,” David bit back, “you didn’t see the way she treated us.”

They had stopped being friends, sometime after Regina’s father had died. That was all Killian had ever been told. After Emma, it had seemed pointless to keep abreast with the particulars; he wasn’t sure his heart could handle carrying their fractures too.

Instead he set his mouth in a tight line. “Everybody grieves in different ways.”

“Just tell me one thing,” the other man continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Did you go to Brooke House?”

His gaze dropped pointedly to the torch Killian carried in one hand, the only thing other than the dagger that he had taken there, and the dagger was tucked out of sight in the inside pocket of his jacket.

David had always been driven by his emotions – his fear, his hurt, the desperation of wanting to know but the trepidation at being burdened with knowledge – it was written as clearly across his face as the first day Killian had brought him and Emma to the old structure in the middle of the woods. He had summoned Killian back to Storybrooke because he had been hopeful about what it might uncover, but now Killian could see there was a chance he might resent every stone they turned over.

In an instant, he knew he couldn’t take David to Brooke House now. For David Nolan, Emma was love, and light, and lost.

_So good of you to finally come and see me_.

“Yes,” he said simply, because he had no desire to lie, but would also rather the truth be kept as far from David as possible He hadn’t visited the house _with _Regina, but it was implicit in the details he chose to omit.

David’s expression contorted with anger, with hurt, and when he spoke his voice tremored like a wound.

“_I’m_ the one who called you,” he snapped. “We’re supposed to be doing this _together_, Killian.”

_We’re getting her back. _

_Together._

Killian hesitated.

_So good of you to finally come and see me_.

Better David stayed out of it.

When Killian spoke again he was careful to keep his tone cool, his manner disaffected.

“Maybe that’s where we went wrong last time.”

For a moment David simply stared at him, dumbfounded.

“_Fuck you_, Jones.”

The door to the diner had slammed shut before Killian had even registered what was happening, the shutters swaying wildly from side to side in his wake. All at once feeling relieved and bereft, Killian attempted to gather his wits and prepared to head back to his room. Only then did he notice that one of the patrons now stood between himself and the hallway, her soft, lavender coat wrapped tightly around her and a dainty bag slung over her shoulder.

She smiled kindly, although Killian resisted the urge to recoil at the pity he saw in her eyes.

But instead of offering up an attempt at a comforting platitude, such would be her normal fare, Mary Margaret finally let the polite veneer she had come to adopt slip, and he caught a glimpse of the spark that had given rise to her strong friendship with Regina Mills to begin with.

“You look like you could use a drink.”

Killian checked his watch. 9:29am. He thought longingly of his bed upstairs.

He sighed. “Definitely.”

-/-

** 10 Hours Earlier **

“So good of you to finally come and see me.”

Killian’s chest began to ache, and he realised it was because he hadn’t drawn a breath in a number of moments, and his torso shuddered with the effort of doing so. The bulb in his torch winked once, twice, and then gave up altogether.

The vision of her remained.

Still watching him, her eyes glittering dangerously in the dim light, all sharp jade and alert and waiting for him to make the next move. Her skin was pale, but the slope of her cheeks looked all too familiar, all too close, the curve of her mouth exactly as it looked in his dreams aside from the lack of warmth in her smile. Killian found his eyes flickering to every inch of her, for some indication that what he was seeing was a falsehood, but he found none.

This was Emma Swan.

_Don’t tell me – it’s hot cocoa, with cinnamon, and you’re about to hand it over_.

The hand holding the dagger fell limply at his side. “Emma?”

“Surprised?” she smirked, lifting her hands to touch the circlet of dark grey flowers resting on her head. As she did so, two shrivelled petals fell away. “I know, it’s not my usual look. But it does come with a few perks.”

Emma twirled once, her dress floating daintily around her, and Killian dazedly tried to take it in. The hem was crusted in muck and leaves, as if it had been dragged along the forest floor, but the rest was a perfect white like the eponymous creature her name had always alluded to. 

But it was Emma. Emma Swan was standing in front of him.

He reminded himself to take another breath.

“How –” his voice cracked, and he tried to find it again. “How are you –?”

“Here?” she finished, and she stilled the movement of her skirt abruptly, her tone suddenly sharp and cold. “I’m exactly where you _left_ me, Killian Jones.” 

A fierce breeze blew past him and he flinched away, and once he wrenched his gaze back up to look at her she was no longer standing there. Instead, her voice came from behind him.

“After you _abandoned_ me,” she spat, her voice continuing to penetrate like shards of ice, “just like everyone else. And to think, as a girl I’d been naïve enough to think you were different?”

Killian’s lips parted, trying valiantly to keep up with the whiplash of the encounter. After five years, what he had scarcely hoped to be true had come about, Emma was _there_, but she was overcome with a kind of piercing fury and as she began to circle around him he struggled to keep his legs from giving out underneath him.

“I didn’t abandon you,” he protested, hoarsely, and Emma scoffed.

“No? I suppose bailing out to you is just a _riotous_ show of support.”

Here, Killian could feel himself coming back to himself a little – he was responsible for much wrongdoing, that was certain, but he hadn’t come here to be attacked.

Before he could retort, she cut across him like a bullet.

“After all, isn’t that what your dear, sweet brother did?”

Instinctively Killian flinched, his hand clenching around the hilt of the dagger and something white hot shooting up his spine. As children they had shared so much with each other; they had always known how to make each other bleed.

He hadn’t realised his eyes had closed until the touch of something chilled to his temple shocked him into opening them; Emma was standing before him, her right hand drifting gently upwards as she ran the back of her fingers along the shell of his cheek. Up close, he could see the dark circles that rimmed her eyes, the sallow tint to her complexion, the way her skin appeared stretched, gaunt, over her cheekbones.

Her touch was ice cold. Killian could only watch, panicked and wretched and fearful, as Emma continued moving her hand down, fascinated, as if lingering on the warmth he radiated.

“It’s alright,” she murmured, her biting words drifting to tenderness, “I forgive you. You helped me realise the most important thing.”

She lifted herself onto her tiptoes, leaning in close to his ear. When she spoke, he could feel cool air lifting the hairs on the back of his neck. She smelt like the forest at dusk.

“The only one who saves me is me.”

A hiss, the freezing touch of her lips to the skin just below his ear, and she was gone again.

“You seem a little overwhelmed,” Emma declared imperiously, and now she was standing in the doorway that led out towards the rest of the house. The puckish delight he had seen in her when she appeared had returned, and she twirled once more in her gown, skirt swishing noisily around the floor. “Why don’t you come back when you’re ready?”

Before his heart could beat another woeful throb, she had disappeared completely. 

Killian stared at the space she had been, now vacant and vast, and tried to wrench himself back into the present.

“Emma?”

His torch flickered back into life. 

Killian reminded himself to take a breath.

More than a little disconcerted, he called her name again into the dark; but he was as alone as he had been when he first arrived. Disquiet slowly giving way to agitation, he gave every corner of the room one last glance before he swept out into the hallway again, scouring the house for any sign of her. 

Even as he thundered up to the second floor and threw open the door to every bedroom, rifled through cupboards, hauled down the rotted door to the attic, she remained completely absent. Killian tried to stem the growing tide of anguish once he realised she would probably not reappear. For a moment he considered that he might have passed out for a few minutes and hallucinated, or that he was asleep back in his room at Granny’s, but Killian had confidence in his own intrinsic sense of _knowing_ when something was real that made him certain he hadn’t conjured up the encounter from one of his more desperate dreams.

Emma Swan was _here_.

Like a mirror pointed inwards, the very walls of Brooke House were saturated with her; he could feel her pulse through the old, rotted panelling, could hear her steps creaking on the floorboards. He could almost see her sitting at the spinning wheel of the otherwise barren room on the second floor. The dusty tomes of the bookcase in the study had been hauled out of place and clumsily returned a thousand times over – pages had been earmarked and passages circled that would appeal to her spirit. In the attic, the wardrobe door hung wide open.

Emma Swan was here – she just didn’t want to see _him_. 

_Why don’t you come back when you’re ready?_

No matter what he tried, nor how often he begged or pleaded into the blackened hallways, whatever vestige of her he had seen did not return. 

Dawn had long since broken by the time he left the house.

He longed for rest, for quiet; and most of all he longed for Emma.

-/-

** October 22 ** ** nd ** ** – 5 Years Ago **

Emma’s birthday crashed into the Nolan household with far more aplomb than she was comfortable with. From the moment David had tumbled into her bedroom waving about a card and a present he was immensely proud of (a book of humorous ‘worst case scenarios’, to, in his own words, remind her to “cheer up, because at least there aren’t alligators”), she had been the centre of attention all day. Ruth had treated her to a grandiose breakfast of all of her favourite treats, and gifted her a beautiful desk set which looked easily more expensive than anything she had ever owned; which either made her feel unbelievably touched or profoundly uncomfortable, she couldn’t decide. Either way meant she promised she would cherish it.

But as grateful as she was, mostly she was feeling more than a little overwhelmed. She hadn’t been lying when she had told David she would rather the day pass quietly, perhaps with a movie or two. Birthdays for her had always been a lonesome affair, another year under her belt marking the distance from the day her parents had abandoned her by the side of the road; and just as she had been expecting, jumping from one extreme to the other was a difficult adjustment.

Still, even inundated with the gifts and attention she knew she was fortunate to receive, Emma couldn’t help but feel like something was missing.

It wasn’t until Killian had turned up on their doorstep, declaring that she had to join him on an expedition, that she realised quite what it was. She had hurriedly called over her shoulder than she would be back in a few hours, grabbed her coat and skipped down the steps after him.

She hadn’t seen much of Killian over the last week or so – in fact, she hadn’t gotten the chance to spend any real time with him since the day they had visited Brooke House. He had taken to spending his lunches in the library, away from the bustle of noise that normally surrounded David’s friends that Emma occasionally fell into these days, and he vanished soon after the bell rang marking the end of the day. It tugged an odd sensation from her. After years of him being only a few doors down under Archie’s roof, she was feeling oddly bereft of his presence after his isolating behaviour in the last week or so.

As she practically jogged down the street after him, she felt something calm and pleasant warm her when she observed his excitement as he charged ahead; she was only half listening to what he was saying.

And it _did_ seem like he’d forgotten it was her birthday. Which suited Emma just fine.

Only when they began to turn up the pebbled path to the Convent of the Sisters of Saint Meissa did Emma’s awareness of her surroundings really kick in, and she slowed her trail of Killian enough for him to notice.

“_What_ are we doing here?”

Killian gave her an odd look. “I told you – ‘Beauty’, I found her.”

“Beauty?” After a beat, realisation dawned. “Like the photograph?”

“Turns out she’s been living in Storybrooke the whole time – the nuns have been taking care of her for the past few years.”

Emma arched an eyebrow. “Taking care of her?”

“Well, she’s… I mean she’s old, obviously,” Killian looked a little uncomfortable, “and y’know… old people need taking care of.”

She had the distinct impression he was leaving something out, but the eager smile he was giving her and the crook of his finger as he took slow, backward steps up the path won her over, albeit reluctantly, and they made their way to the convent.

A kindly nun greeted them on the doorsteps, and given the warmth of the greeting and the apparent familiarity with Killian, Emma sensed he had called ahead. The nun excitedly told them that Mrs Gold did not receive many callers, but felt it would do her a world of good to be visited by a couple of kindly young souls from the town. Emma’s unease grew, but she trusted Killian. Perhaps it wasn’t where she had imagined spending the latter half of her birthday, but that hardly mattered now.

They were led up the stairs to a bedroom door on the landing, and the nun knocked three times to announce their entrance.

“Belle? Belle, my dear?”

Killian was right; the woman nestled into the bed _was_ old. But the soft lines of her face and the lovely, big eyes she had turned to the window were a sure sign that she had once been beautiful. Even with her silver hair and the puckered skin around her features she was easily recognisable as the girl in the photograph they had found in the attic. ‘Beauty’ had been right – but how Killian had found her was a complete mystery.

The nun called her name again. Belle did not turn from the window, and it was then that Emma observed the almost glassy coolness that had settled in her ice-blue eyes. She stared with a definite vacancy out into the garden below, and it was only when the nun gently touched her shoulder that she was suddenly jerked for her trance and, startled, became aware of the visitors.

Emma realised why exactly Killian was reluctant to discuss the state of the aged Mrs Gold; she would certainly have voiced a protest to disturbing an elderly woman with any measure of vulnerability.

Still, after the nun had introduced them, a perfect, gentle smile bloomed, and it changed the shape of her features entirely. She greeted them warmly and the nun, satisfied, soon departed the room.

Emma fidgeted. Killian immediately reached for a chair and scraped it over to the bedside, but Emma preferred to stand – she felt a little uncomfortable as it was, and instead wandered over to the window to perhaps catch a glimpse of what had so captured the woman’s attention.

“This is you, right? In the photo?” Killian was handing it over, and the woman’s laugh was positively musical as she took it from him.

“Why, yes,” she chortled, tracing a finger down the edge of the image. “If – if you can believe it now.”

“You look lovely,” Killian hurried to assure, “then and now.”

“Thank you, sweet boy,” Belle smiled. “Where on earth did you come by this?”

Killian shot Emma a look, but she shrugged. This was _his_ venture.

“I found it,” he began, with a marked amount of trepidation, “in Brooke House.”

Immediately, the old woman’s face fell. Emma watched with amazement as her big, beautiful eyes grew sad, and she thrust the photo back towards Killian, who accepted it more out of surprise than anything else.

Belle shook her head sorrowfully. “I don’t… I don’t know anything about that boy, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Which boy?” Killian asked.

“The boy with the lovely manners,” she answered, as if that explanation were enough to make it obvious, “he brought me carnations.” At their continuing blank looks, Belle began to fidget nervously with the duvet, intermittently clutching it tightly between her fingertips and releasing it. “They say he… he drove off a cliff.”

_Liam_. Killian’s eyes closed instantly. Emma stepped up to stand by his shoulder and squeezed it once with her hand.

From all that Killian had told her about Liam, it seemed altogether quite believable that he might be the sort of man to bring an elderly lady flowers and win her over by simply being kind. Killian appeared to have reached that conclusion too.

“That boy was my brother, Liam.”

“Oh.” Belle’s eyes grew wide, and sad. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“But how did you meet him? Liam?” Emma inquired.

“He brought me carnations,” Belle repeated, her voice deep and slow. “He had such lovely manners.”

Emma and Killian exchanged looks. He slipped the photograph back into his pocket.

“We were wondering if we could ask you about the house – Brooke House, where we found the photograph.” Belle bit her lip, gaze flitting nervously between the two of them. “Did you live there?”

“My – my husband,” she said, “he found – he found a house, in the woods – and he thought it might make him strong.”

_Make him –? _That settled it for Emma. This woman was, in all likelihood, _nuts_. No wonder she’d been left with the nuns.

Killian’s lips had parted, but before he could speak the old woman suddenly lurched forward with alarming speed, a frail hand reaching for his and gripping it sharply.

“You _mustn’t_ go there,” she spoke directly, staring firmly into Killian’s eyes with a cognizance Emma would not have attributed to her. “It will only bring you pain.”

Killian did his best to meet her halfway. “Why? What happened to your husband?”

Just as quickly as she had taken it, she released his hand. Emma watched as Killian stretched out his fingers and winced a little – had she been gripping it that tightly? Had she even the _ability_ to? As Belle retreated her eyelids drooped, a melancholy settling around her shoulders that Emma realised she had seen before. Except, now that she knew that for a brief moment Belle Gold had been without it, she wanted to see it again so she might be able to discern the differences in her demeanour. This woman was devastatingly sad, and confused, and Emma grew more uneasy the longer they spent with her.

Not least for the affect it might have on Killian; finding Brooke House to begin with had to be staggering enough.

“No one would believe me,” Belle murmured miserably.

“We’ll believe you,” Killian was quick to assure her, “I promise.”

Belle’s eyes snapped to his. She was all caprice.

“He was _taken_.” She shook her head. “By darkness, in the middle of the night. There is… there is _evil_ in that house.”

For a moment Emma was no longer in the tattered bedroom of the convent, but the attic of Brooke House – the wardrobe thumped, beckoned, and whispered. She felt her heart begin to race. 

It wanted to know her.

“Do you believe in magic?”

The odd question startled her back to the present, and she was at once able to observe what was happening – Killian watching her, mesmerised, as the old woman spun her tale. He was vulnerable enough, he didn’t need his head filled with all sorts of _wizard crap_ from a batty old lady who lived with nuns. Emma wasn’t having it.

“Killian,” she pleaded, “this is ridiculous…”

But Killian dismissed her concerns with an impatient wave of his hand, and urged Belle to continue.

“My husband believed a spirit resided in Brooke House – a spirit that could gift the one who freed it with ultimate power. He wanted it.” Belle shut her eyes, her wizened face contorted with pain. “That was his undoing.”

Killian was utterly entranced. “What – what kind of spirit?”

Belle shook her head. She didn’t speak again for a number of moments but Emma could sense Killian’s reluctance to ask for a second time; somehow to repeat the question might be to insert some much needed realism into the moment, and the spell might be broken. Whatever fantastical answers he wanted inhabited this single second.

She just hoped they would be enough this time.

To her surprise, Belle’s eyes began to fill with tears.

“I couldn’t do anything,” she began to weep, “for the lovely boy. He b-brought me carnations.” 

“But what did my brother want?” Killian pressed. “Did he ask you about the house?”

“He had such lovely manners.”

Soon, her quiet shaking gave way to a loud wail, and Killian stood from his chair in alarm. Emma, completely unnerved by the elderly woman suddenly howling through the stillness of the convent and entirely unsure of what to do next, merely stood awkwardly halfway to the door – should they fetch one of the nuns? Just leave?

Emma’s mouth was open to ask if she’d like a glass of water or something equally banal and probably inappropriate, when the door swung open and the nun who had invited them inside came through looking startled.

From the way her expression morphed into one of tight fury, Emma knew their visit was over. In a matter of minutes they had been ushered quite tersely to the front door of the convent and invited not to return again if they would insist on distressing their residents in such a way, but Emma couldn’t stop thinking about the way Belle rocked in her bed and wept so strongly into her hands for a boy she barely knew; the sweet and gentle Liam Jones, who had brought her carnations. It seemed every life he’d walked through was incapable of getting over his loss.

Liam was always the one part of Killian that Emma could not touch.

Left stranded on the porch as they were, Emma surveyed the long lawn that led out from the convent. The tips of the grass were frosted over, a herald of the likely harsh winter she knew would follow, and peppered with streaks of gold where errant leaves had blown across from the treeline at the far end. It was all stillness outside, like the air itself were holding its breath. She stole a glance at Killian but he, too, was staring out from the stone wall.

Then he took off quickly down the stairs.

“Killian –?” Emma immediately started after him, and like her call had suddenly jerked him into remembering he was there, he turned and winced.

“Let’s just… let’s not talk about it,” he pleaded. “Just – just for a little while. Please can we not even try.”

Maybe retrospect was allowing him to really see what had just happened the way Emma did; they had been entertaining the crazed ramblings of an unfortunately ill elderly woman, who genuinely believed her husband had disappeared because of the machinations of an _evil spirit_. Who apparently lived in a cabin. Perhaps he was embarrassed.

So, for the nth time in recent memory, Emma was helpless to not wanting to point it out to him. He was reaching, and part of him probably knew it. Instead, she let out a weary sigh.

“Granny’s?”

“Ah,” he suddenly jolted, “yes! Granny’s. I have something else to show you.”

He darted for her hand and used it to tug her clumsily down the steps towards him and, baffled at his sudden change in demeanour, Emma laughed and let herself collapse into his side.

“But I have to tell you, if it’s another old person about to ask me to believe in magic, it’s going to be a hard pass.”

“Oh, _shush_.”

-/-

** Present Day **

Aesop’s Tables was probably the only place serving alcohol that early in the morning, so Killian didn’t question it when Mary Margaret led them to that part of town. Nestled into a redbrick industrial building, it had always been an easily overlooked sort of place – and it was the sort of place that tended to easily overlook _you_, provided you could pay for beer and didn’t cause any trouble. It was a popular location for late teens or young adults trying to see how far they could push the _‘I’m over twenty-one’_ line until it was true, and given there were worse things they could be pretending to be, they were largely left alone.

Mary Margaret held the door open for him, and after they entered he was immediately hit by a wave of something tangy smelling, a fragrance that let you know just before the fact that your shoes would make a peeling sound when you lifted them off the ground. The tables were a worn and dull oak that might once have been nice-looking, but constant forceful cleaning had long since deadened them, and no matter how many times were wiped over always felt just a little bit greasy underneath your fingers, like they still oozed lager that had been spilt into the cracks a thousand times over.

It wasn’t exactly the sort of place he could imagine Mary Margaret, elementary school teacher, wearer of lavender coats and soft berets, spending time in.

It was _exactly_ the sort of place he could imagine Mary Margaret, certified firecracker, acerbic of wit and bold of humour when they were seventeen and invincible, spending time in.

Although the two facets of her had always existed simultaneously, they had always complimented each other in a way that had only strengthened her spirit; she seemed less, somehow, for letting one take precedence over the other.

Certainly watching her daintily lay her lavender coat over one of the crooked bar stools didn’t quite _click_ into place the way it should have done.

Killian nodded to Aesop, who thankfully didn’t care about serving town pariahs as much as he didn’t care about serving minors, and ordered them each a rum and coke.

(A little bit of one side – and a little bit of the other). 

“So,” Mary Margaret said, peering at him over the rim of her glass before taking a sip. Her nose wrinkled, barely noticeably, before the corner of her mouth ticked up. “David. That looked like a difficult conversation.”

“I’ve had worse,” Killian answered, not untruthfully. He felt tired; the kind of tired that burrowed deep into your bones. Mary Margaret hummed in agreement, and something about it made Killian finally give over to his curiosity. “So. David,” he echoed. “What happened? When I left, you were… well, you were definitely heading somewhere.”

Mary Margaret immediately dropped her gaze, picking at the smooth wood of the bar with a fingernail. Like David, she wore her every emotion on her sleeve, but regret had written itself so closely into the shape of her brow that Killian almost didn’t notice it – or it had been there for a lot longer than he realised.

“David… made his choice,” she finally sighed. “As much as I wish it could have gone another way…”

Ah, now he understood. “He didn’t want to let go?”

“Don’t judge me, Killian,” Mary Margaret’s tone was sharp with reproach as she straightened on her stool. “Some people don’t want to live in their trauma.”

He could remember a cool night in early summer, the year after they had lost Emma. Huddled by the edge of the forest he could still hear the buzz of insects, feel the way the soil had kicked up underfoot, the harsh zoom of nearby cars. The night she gave up first.

_I want the chance to _miss_ her. But it’s impossible around all of you_.

The Mary Margaret of _now_ looked almost exactly like the Mary Margaret of _then_. The Mary Margaret that would rather be soft and sure than part of their razor’s edge.

She took another drink. “Not all of us have your stamina.”

It was just a statement of fact, unintending of any hurt, but he felt its sting all the same. “Well, I’m sorry about it. You two were… it looked nice.”

“I should have left, really,” she said, with a forced nonchalance that fell flat. “Followed your example. But every time I packed a bag I just…” She shook her head ruefully. “There’s something about this town.”

Something jerked in his chest, something ached. “Don’t I know it.”

“Did you miss us?”

“Of course,” he replied, and he meant it.

They sat in silence for a little while, letting it sink into the space between them. Mary Margaret kept scrunching up her expression and then schooling it into something more relaxed, and he could tell she was trying to think of the best way to phrase something – or she already knew exactly what she wanted to say, but she couldn’t decide if it would hurt his feelings.

He wanted to let her know they weren’t such fragile things anymore, but she probably still remembered the boy on that cool summer night, too.

_We can’t give up now. Not after everything we’ve been through_.

She had put them all away, somewhere; but that was alright. They all had to do what they needed to survive.

“It was upsetting,” Mary Margaret said finally, staring hard at her glass. “_Not_ because of you. It was just – I’m sorry we made you feel like you had to go.”

Killian felt something warm bloom in his chest – the fact she carried any regret towards it was a surprise, especially given his decision to leave Storybrooke had no more to do with them than it had to do with the bus schedule out of town. They were just moving parts in a decision he had made all on his own. It wasn’t on them, but the idea that they might think that and feel sorry for it was both startling and touching.

“It’s alright,” he said wryly, after finishing his drink. “I forgave this town a long, long time ago.”

“I wish the town would forgive you.” She, too, polished off the remainder of her drink, and sighed. “We were stupid kids. And one day our stupidity got someone killed.”

It was amazing, he thought, how selective her memory could be.

Without preamble, Mary Margaret stood from the stool and lifted her lavender coat, checking it briefly for any stains or muck that might have come away with it before she shrugged it on.

“Take care of yourself, Killian. And I’m sorry about what I said before, at Granny’s.” She shook her head, cross with her earlier self. “You can talk to me anytime, about anything. You have my number.”

He did, but he wouldn’t use it. He thanked her honestly and watched her go.

Aesop asked if he wanted another drink.

He thought for a moment.

“Something that will help me sleep,” he said finally, “but not let me dream.”

-/-

** October 22nd – Five Years Ago **

Killian’s hand kept brushing into the space between them, almost reaching, before retreating at the last minute. Emma’s pulse quickened with every inch it skimmed closer to her own hand, almost daring him to go ahead and take it.

It wasn’t like it would be the first time – she had often found herself reaching for his hand, to provide reassurance or some much needed comfort, and he the same for her. It had felt like their entire cautious journey from the rotted front door of Brooke House all the way up to the attic they had stayed attached to each other, needing something to secure themselves to the real world, lest their overactive imaginations pull them apart.

It was just that – right now – they would be a boy, and a girl, on Main Street, and without any such excuse.

She wondered if Killian even noticed that he was doing it.

He spoke animatedly about nothing at all. About the history project they had been given by Mr. Hyde, about the new Sheriff the town had elected last month. About _liquorice allsorts_, in his smooth, British accent with his face turned onto the road ahead so she could easily, secretly, admire the hard line of his jaw.

It wasn’t like she hadn’t _noticed_. They weren’t kids anymore. Killian had broader shoulders now, and hair that fell _just so, _and she remembered the way his upper body had tensed pleasantly the day the seniors had been asked to help put up the Halloween decorations around the school. The friendship she and Killian had forged in fire had always been made of sterner stuff, stuff that had always made her flat out reject any idea of taking that relationship any further than the platonic. He was too special, too important. But it didn’t mean sometimes she didn’t imagine it another way.

And sometimes, when his hand brushed hers, gently, in broad daylight, she thought he had probably imagined it too.

Granny’s was abuzz with the Sunday lunchtime rush, but once the proprietor had noticed their entrance she quickly hurried them over to an empty booth in the corner, bestowing a fond smile on Killian and tousling his hair as she did so. Killian batted her hand away, but Emma could tell he was pleased. Due to their friendship with Ruby, she and Killian were always more than welcome in the Lucas household, which included some added benefits when the household was attached to a _diner_.

Nonetheless, she was still surprised when instead of her usual diet coke, Granny instead marched proudly over with a large, almost clumsily put together cake with bright pink, uneven frosting, and placed it down in front of her.

The words _Happy Birthday Emma!_ had been wobblily written across in blue icing.

When Emma lifted her surprised gaze from the cake, she met Killian’s grinning face looking _distinctly_ pleased with himself.

“You remembered?” She was sure he’d completely forgotten, amid everything that had happened over the last few weeks.

To his credit, Killian almost looked offended at the notion. “Of course,” he insisted. “I was up at the crack of dawn making this!” A throat was cleared loudly above them, and Killian conceded; “Well, Granny helped.”

“_And_ bought the ingredients, _and_ provided the kitchen space?”

“_Granny_,” Killian was smiling, although he spoke through gritted teeth, “would you actually mind if – could we have a moment, please?”

Emma missed whatever look of understanding likely passed between the pair of them, as Granny then retreated quickly, but she found herself struck by the image of Killian back in the kitchen of the diner, fussing about how to get the cake just right. Lanky limbs would get in the way, flour would get _everywhere_; Killian didn’t know the first thing about baking.

Which was probably why it looked so lumpy, like a child had moulded it out of clay.

It was – even more than Ruth’s beautiful desk set, perhaps – startlingly thoughtful.

“Do you… like it?” He was nervous, which was when Emma realised she hadn’t spoken, so she quickly smiled to reassure him.

“It probably tastes better than it looks, right?”

Killian snorted, and Emma too started to laugh. Before long they had both dissolved into fits of laughter, and after Granny had returned with a knife and couple of plates, they had each cut themselves a generous slice and agreed that yes, definitely, it tasted far better than it looked.

“I got you something else,” Killian said later, after she’d shovelled the last mouthful in of her third slice, and declared she couldn’t eat another bite.

“Oh god, if it involves icing I’m going to have to respectfully decline.”

Killian smiled obligingly, but waved her off before reaching into his jacket. Emma could tell from the way he hesitated that he was nervous, and that was enough to make her own pulse race a little quicker. A gift from David or Ruth she could graciously, if awkwardly, accept, but Killian had always been something else. They did not waste trinkets on each other, they never had – money had never been an infinite tool at their disposal, even in the kindness under Archie’s roof.

What Killian withdrew from his coat was a thin white envelope, with her name written neatly across it.

“Alright,” Emma gave him a suspicious look as he handed it over, “colour me intrigued.”

Killian’s hands moved from their place resting atop the table to being clasped together, before separating again restlessly. It took a moment for Emma to register what the small slip of paper that slid out of the envelope was.

_STATE OF MAINE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORT  
FROM: Storybrooke TO: Augusta  
DEP: 23Jun15 18:00 SCHED: 8150  
\--  
TICKET FOR SCHEDULE 8150 / 23Jun15  
FARE $23.00_

She felt like she’d seen a hundred of them before – but she still didn’t really understand what she was seeing. Her gaze lifted to Killian, fidgeting in his seat, and she bit her lip. “What am I looking at?”

“I know this town isn’t where it ends, not for you,” Killian said by way of answer. “I’ve always known that, like I know how to tie my own shoelaces. You love David, and Ruth, and Regina and Ruby and Mary Margaret, but you want _more_. You always have. You _deserve_ more.” His words zinged with a nervous sort of energy, and Emma felt her heart begin to pound against her ribcage. “So I’m trying to… give you more.”

“It’s a bus ticket.”

“It’s for the date of graduation,” Killian hurried to point out, swallowing as he waved at the ticket. She noticed that yes, it was. “I wanted to buy a plane ticket, but then – I mean, turns out plane tickets are _super_ expensive, and I also wasn’t sure where you’d want to _go_, so—”

“So your birthday present to me,” Emma began slowly, lowering the envelope, trying to make sure she had this right, “is to sit me on a bus and send me out of town next year?”

“Well, actually I was _hoping_,” Killian replied, fumbling with his pocket for a moment, “that you’d want to sit next to me.”

Gently, he placed a matching ticket on the table beside hers.

The stuttering tones of _Only You_ by Yaz began crooning from the jukebox, and Emma decided it was her favourite song in the entire world.

“It’s, erm – it’s more of a symbolic gesture, really. I thought, if you wanted, that we could get as far as Augusta and then make it up from there. Like – maybe Boston, you know? Or New York? Or, and I’m thinking if I can put enough money aside, maybe we _could _get a plane ticket. In fact, Augusta seems like a stupid idea now. And also, wow, super presumptuous. Who says you even want to leave? This is officially the worst idea I’ve ever had.” He continued speaking to fill the vacuous space left by her silence, peering closely at his ticket. “I think I can get a refund if I –”

Emma was up on her feet, rounding the table so she could slide in beside him in the booth before he could finish the sentence. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and kissed him hard on the cheek.

She wasn’t sure what made her do it, but she felt overwhelmed by warmth. On a day that had started uncertainly Killian Jones, as always, was joy and thoughtfulness. All at once to her he was twelve years old and kind and scared but also seventeen and fierce and wanting, and he had bought them both a ticket out of Storybrooke for the day their obligations ended. Future with Killian was limitless; there was only sky for miles and miles and miles.

She couldn’t _wait_.

“Thank you,” she said earnestly, to Killian’s dazed expression. “For always knowing exactly what I want before I do.”

“You’re… you’re welcome.”

He probably noticed the exact moment she did the proximity her new position had granted them. Emma realised, with a shot of unexpected and terrifying delight, that they were now just inches apart. All it would take was the slightest movement forward from either of them to finally satisfy their curiosity. From the way Killian’s gaze flickered down to her lips she could tell the same thought had crossed his mind. Knowing him, he was probably waiting to see what she would do.

All other sound tuned out in an unhurried manner, as if someone were slowly turning the volume down on the diner, on the conversation of the patrons and the sound of cutlery on plates or Granny’s loud repetition of the orders she had just received, except for the jukebox. The electronic bop of _Only You_ still tiptoed up and down the scale, and Emma felt herself swaying dangerously forward. She could spot a scratch of youthful, patchy stubble beginning to grow on his chin, and the barely visible scar on his right cheek from when they were fourteen and Regina had flung a pencil at him with excessive force. She knew the curve of his mouth as well as she knew her own.

But she just – she couldn’t. Not now. They’d made plans together, _important_ plans. She couldn’t bear it if there were any reason she couldn’t sit beside Killian on that bus to Augusta.

Besides, the future was only sky. They had all the time in the world.

Emma cleared her throat, smiling self-consciously and sliding her arms back from around his neck. It burst the bubble, and Killian too shook his head lightly as if to jog himself back into the moment.

After a beat of nervous chuckling, _Only You_ became the song she had _almost_ kissed Killian Jones to.

She returned to her seat opposite him.

“Really, thank you,” she said, and she meant it. “Augusta suits me just fine.”

Killian bowed his head shyly.

“Just as well,” he muttered, “it was pretty much all I could afford.”

-/-

** Present Day **

“Emma?”

He had waited until dark to return to Brooke House, snatching a few hours of restless sleep from within his room at Granny’s, but he still felt tormented by the faces in the town he had left behind. His phone was notably absent of any texts from David, and Regina had left his last message on read and not bothered to reply. Mary Margaret’s offer of confidence fell flat when he knew the things he wanted to share she didn’t truly want to hear. Even Ruby had avoided him, not wanting to finish their earlier conversation.

All Killian could think about was Emma.

_I’m exactly where you_ left_ me, Killian Jones_.

_The only one who saves me is me_.

Something had survived in that house, and after all this time he wanted answers. Be it vengeful spirit, demonic manifestation or the soul of the girl he had loved, the _not knowing_ simply wasn’t enough anymore. The visage of her had robbed him of his confidence, stolen him away from the barely cultivated life he had built from the debris of his own making, and he wasn’t leaving Storybrooke until he could close this chapter for good.

He had left the dagger behind, wrapped it in an old scarf and stuffed it under the seat in his Chevelle – it felt safer there than hidden in his room at Granny’s. He wasn’t sure if the old lady would come snooping again and he didn’t want to tempt fate by leaving something so conspicuous anywhere she could find it.

Peering into the gloom of the living room, Killian called her name again, and at first the only answer was the sway and creak of the old house, but before long he felt her enter the room. Like all the air had been sucked out, and only a light ringing in his ear could be heard over the deep, deadly cadence of her voice.

“Welcome back.” She spoke from somewhere near his elbow, but when he turned she had already moved far away to the window, the curtain lifted by a breeze with nothing natural about it. “Do you feel a little better now?”

Not as blindsided, maybe. But better?

“Where have you been?” Killian started. Brooke House had disappeared with Emma, _that_ had been well documented by all of them. Its return now had to mean something. “What happened to you?”

Emma surveyed him shrewdly, tilting her chin upwards. A black petal fell from her crown, but landed delicately in her outstretched palm.

“You want to know if I’m still me.” Her tone was almost accusatory when she spoke, before it curled into something awful and amused. “Oh, Killian, don’t tell me you’re still carrying _that_ particular torch. That’s so… sweet.”

Killian felt himself flush angrily, but was sure in the dark she wouldn’t even notice. The heat was a welcome change from the cold that surrounded her.

“I _want_ to know what the bloody hell happened that night.”

Her gown was the same white he had seen the night before, and it audibly swished as she moved across the floor, slowly, daintily, like a ghost of pure ivory.

“Do you remember my eighteenth birthday?” she said instead, ignoring him. When she smiled her eyes were black and Killian had to look away. In an instant she was beside him, brushing a chilled hand down his arm. “You took me to Granny’s, gave me that _awful_ cake. And that pathetic little bus ticket.” She laughed cruelly and Killian ripped his arm from her grip. “God, it’s true what they say, isn’t it? Everything you do as a teenager _does _make you cringe when you grow up.”

Rage began to build beneath the surface of his skin, and he gritted his teeth.

_Don’t_, he begged. _Don’t take away those moments_.

Precious, fugacious things.

In the coolness of her presence, everything was ashes.

“What are you?”

“Is that where you started, I wonder?” she continued loudly, tilting her head far to the side. It was a decidedly inhuman gesture, her neck bent farther than could be comfortable. “On that bus to Augusta? Did you get on it by yourself with those big, sad eyes, and wish I’d been sitting there too?”

Killian felt a humiliating sting behind his nose and turned abruptly away. He wouldn’t let her see it. He wouldn’t let her take another part of him without a fight. Instead, he jolted in surprise when he felt something press into his back. Killian knew it must be the curve of her forehead, as her two hands came to rest above it, between his shoulder blades, hard fingers curling into his jacket.

“I felt it as you walked the Earth, Killian Jones. Every step. My dagger has tasted so many _wonderful_ places.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper, like drizzle in the fall. Constant and sad and desperate and desirable. “You said it yourself. This town isn’t where it ends for me.”

Her nails were beginning to sting his shoulder, but he daren’t turn around. Somehow he felt more powerful with his back to her, with her clinging to him like a child. By fair means or foul, it soothed a little of the ache of the years he had spent clinging to her with a similar fervour.

“What,” he hesitated, cleared his throat so he didn’t sound so hoarse, “what do you want?”

“Now you’re asking the right questions.”

Her fingers dug in harder as he felt her lift herself onto her tiptoes so she could whisper in his ear. When she spoke again it was harsh and granular and the melodic lilt was gone.

“_I want to be free of this house_.”

The moment Killian chose to pull himself away was the same moment she released him, and when he spun around he saw her again standing by the window and looking out. With her admission hanging deadly in the air, the words still ricocheting across his skull, he thought she looked almost longing. Sad. Or hungry.

“But David,” he said, making his bemusement clear, “Ruby – they said they saw –”

A figure at the end of the bed.

On the edge of Main Street.

Killian, himself, had seen the whisper of a gown swish closely out of sight.

_Only You_ had been playing around him for days, on radios, in shops, aching, wanting, reminding him of everything that never was, the roads that time had closed. He had assumed that was her doing.

“Oh, I can test the boundaries,” Emma dismissed him with the wave of a hand, “stretch my limits. But I’m always tethered here.”

With a start she was in front of him, and if the concerned crease of her brow and the roundness of her eyes were enough to make him forget the gaunt pallor or the ice of her touch, he might’ve thought he were staring at Emma Swan as he had known her. She clutched at his hands painfully tightly.

“Help me, Killian,” she begged, and her voice had become light and youth and – _normal_. “Let me out. Please.”

His lips parted. For a moment, a desire overwhelmed him to run to the Chevelle, to grab the dagger and bring it back to Brooke House, to lay it at her feet. He desperately wanted to please her. He knew not why other than the sensation that he _must_, and his body tensed, readying itself for the journey.

Only something triumphant had flickered in Emma’s expression then, and it was enough to wrench him out of the thrall. He trembled with the effort of keeping himself steady, almost stumbling forward right into her.

“You?” he gasped. “Or what’s _inside_ you?” With effort he pushed her away, gripping her shoulders and holding her at arm’s length. “I won’t do it.”

It seemed imperative that whatever restless spirit had taken root in Storybrooke, it should never be able to leave.

Within seconds he was only holding empty air and Emma was gone again.

This time when she spoke, the deep, heavy voice was back, talking as imperiously as he would expect from something so hostile.

“Even if I could tell you what happened to your brother?”

Killian did a double take, but Emma wasn’t in the room anymore. He scrambled out the door into the hallway and found her mounting the stairs, the muddied edge of her gown trailing behind her.

“Liam?”

“I know now, don’t you see?” she threw over her shoulder. “I’ll tell you everything – but only if you help me.”

Killian shook his head fiercely. “You’re not her.” Maybe she never was. “My Emma didn’t play _games_. And whatever you are, you can be damned sure I will never help you.”

He couldn’t see Emma’s expression as she disappeared up onto the landing, and she sounded much farther away than should be possible.

“You don’t have to decide now,” she murmured, Killian straining his ears to hear her. “‘_Looking from a window above, it’s like a story of love…’_”

Gritting his teeth, Killian pounded up the stairs behind her, the wood groaning in protest, but she was already gone. As a cursory gesture he threw open the door to the room with the spinning wheel, and although it continued to spin eerily slowly, the by now familiar _creek_ accompanying its every complete rotation, Emma was nowhere to be seen. Based on his experiences the day prior, he was certain he wouldn’t find her in any other room in the house.

Back in the hallway, he considered heading back to the Chevelle and retrieving the dagger. Surely _that_ would lure her back.

He dismissed it almost immediately – not tonight.

Tonight he would let himself mourn.

Tomorrow, the real work began.


	4. 4 - an unearthly hand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and here is chapter four! I'm so grateful for every comment I've gotten so far, they make me so happy and I'm so pleased you guys are enjoying it - and you have all been very generous about my long absence, which I very much appreciate. this chapter actually has one of my favourite sequences I've written for this story, but I'm not telling which it is! again, piles and heaps and large suitcases upon suitcases of gratitude for @HollyeLeigh (@hollyethecurious on tumblr) for the amazing aesthetic without which this story would not exist. now, enjoy!

** Present Day **

The clouds parted for the first time since Killian’s return to Storybrooke on the day he brought Regina to Brooke House, lifting the feeling of _grey_ that had cast its blanket over the town. For days, it had warmed itself in open doorways, prowled after townsfolk around street corners and crept beneath windowsills, and Killian was relieved to be granted something of a reprieve from the fog of autumn in New England.

The house stood, as it had the day before, in the north woods just a brisk, ten-minute walk away from the well-trodden track of the White Pine trail. He didn’t need the faded pieces of string to guide his path to the house anymore, and it had become so _present_ in his impression of the town that he had forgotten that Brooke House, as it looked at that moment, had not always been there.

Regina had stopped twenty paces from the door, expression unreadable but for her parted lips.

It seemed almost unusual to see it in the sparkling sunlight of the morning, like something had been taken right out of it. Here it was white brick and rotted wood and barren, where at night it positively brimmed with something far more than any one person could comprehend. Even at a shell of its normal, terrible self, Regina had taken a little time to process. 

“It really _is_ here,” she had said finally. “How about that.”

She said _how about that_ the same way you would say it if you found out an old classmate had gone on to become a movie star, or you discovered your local grocery store was lifting its embargo on branded products.

Not like a house that was sometimes there, sometimes not there, was today, decidedly, _there_.

It had been a bit more of a laborious journey than he was used to, but Killian’s Chevelle could only take them so far and he had a lot of equipment to bring with him today, cramming everything he could as delicately as possible into his rucksack. Regina, too, had brought a duffle bag full of materials, and Killian could spot the heavy corner of her book of shadows poking out from within, begging to be noticed. The previous times he had visited Brooke House he hadn’t been properly prepared, but this time around Killian was determined to leave the house with something he could quantify, rather than just the deep, sick dread that had left with him every other night.

He had entered the house ahead of her, the novelty of its return long since worn away, and moved into the living room just to the right of the hallway. It was far brighter in the light of day, the long, Victorian windows allowing a brilliant glow from the outside, and Killian could now even spot a few holes near the top of the front wall where the mortar had crumbled away, as dapples of sunlight trickled directly in from above painting yellow specks on the floorboards. Even still, he was not entirely comfortable being there. He walked twice around the edge of the room, every unexpected creak making his heart lurch uncomfortably into his mouth, and even once whispered Emma’s name out into the dust.

Nothing stirred.

Today it was bricks, and rotted wood, and bare.

He was just setting his camera atop its tripod when Regina finally entered, the heels of her boots clicking loudly on the old wood.

“It’s like walking back into high school,” she commented drily, clearly taking in the discarded scarf, the Apollo chocolate bar wrapper. “Is that _my Ouija board_?”

She looked almost indignant, as if Brooke House were an old friend who had borrowed a CD and never bothered to return it, but Killian wanted her attention focused elsewhere.

“Here, come and feel this.”

He led her by the hand (amid protests) to the centre of the room, a ring of dust slightly newer than the rest just barely visible on the floor. It was the place he had been standing the night prior, when Emma had dug her nails sharply into the back of his jacket.

“Palms out. Doesn’t it feel colder here than the rest of the room?”

Regina looked unconvinced. “Maybe a little.”

“It is,” Killian insisted. “I’m sure of it. Stay right there.” He darted back to his rucksack and pulled out two identical aluminium rods, bent at a right angle six inches from one of the ends. When he returned, he held them out to Regina so she could hold the shorter end, and although she pursed her lips in displeasure, obligingly she took them. “Hold them loosely, like this.” He adjusted her grip to match.

Regina looked unamused. “And what, in God’s name, are these?” She arched an eyebrow. “I better not get struck by lightning.”

Killian returned to where he had been squatting by the camera, tilting the tripod so it could capture the spot Regina was standing in. On the infrared display, she was a warm scarlet and gold storm.

“They’re dowsing rods.”

“You’re joking.”

“Couldn’t be more serious. Hold them steady – like that.” Regina reluctantly obliged. “Tell me if they move.”

Killian had experienced limited success with dowsing in the past – it had been shown to him by a farmer in Iowa who had used it to find buried metals and ores underneath the ground, and admittedly actually had a lot to show for the results. Killian himself had been sceptical, and given how intermittent his own successes were, there was no way to tell if they could be attributed to any real sense of divination or sheer blind luck. Still, he wanted to throw everything in his arsenal at Brooke House.

“I don’t have to tell you about the ideomotor response, do I?” Regina said flatly. “Unconscious involuntary movement. Dowsing is bullshit.”

“Says the woman brewing potions in her living room,” Killian shot back. “I mean it – even if it’s a little, tell me if they move.”

Satisfied with the positioning of the camera, he plugged in his tablet and left it set to record before returning to his rucksack. After some deliberation, he reached for the electro-magnetic field reader he had tried to cushion in the bag with a thick scarf. It was blocky and old, and looked like something that had been lifted from a 60s _Star Trek_ set, but it had become one his most valued instruments over the years.

Regina had been craning her neck to see what he was holding, and once she realised, she let out a noise of frustration.

“Killian, if you wanted an EMF reader I would’ve brought mine – at least it’s not a hundred years old. And that’s clearly a single axis meter.” Single axis meters were notoriously more difficult to use than a tri-axis, as they required significant coordination in order to measure the information recorded across all three axis ,while also trying to move the instrument to gather more data; a tri-axis allowed for much more detailed data acquisition. You could only point Killian’s meter at one thing at a time, slowly, whereas Regina’s could probably handle something far more intricate.

Even so, Killian had far more faith in his own device.

“Believe me,” he informed her, “this is better.”

He could practically _hear_ her rolling her eyes.

“Where did you get all this stuff anyway?”

“Ebay, mostly.”

She scoffed. “You look like a quack.”

Killian laughed. _Quack_ was probably the most positive way Regina had ever described him. “And you’re listening to a quack,” he pointed out, “so what does that make you?” He glanced over to see her still standing where he had left her, holding the two dowsing rods outstretched. It didn’t look like they had moved. “Let me know if they cross.”

He was just tweaking with the settings on the EMF reader when Regina carried on.

“Where’s David today, anyway?”

She said ‘_where’s David today_’ as if she were enquiring which films her old school friend had starred in, or when branded products would be making their way onto the shelves at her local supermarket. Mild disinterest and a characteristic neutrality. She didn’t fool Killian for a second.

She carried on. “I was sure we’d be joined by the witless wonder in no time.”

Killian had sent David just one text message last night, a simple _I’m sorry_. David had read it, and not replied. He had to remind himself it was better off this way.

“He’s… busy.”

Regina looked surprised. “It’s been three days. How have you already fallen out with him?”

Killian tried to make his shrug as blithe as possible. “It’s a gift, I suppose.” He could just add David Nolan to the long list of people in Storybrooke who _really _didn’t want him to be there. Deciding finally that the dowsing rods weren’t getting anything from the cold spot, or perhaps weren’t getting anything from _Regina_, he crossed back over to her and swapped them for the EMF reader. This was something Regina was far more familiar with, and immediately began spinning slowly in place even as she wrinkled her nose disdainfully at the antiquated design.

“And, why, exactly, are we here?”

“We’re looking for Emma.”

_Help me, Killian. Let me out. Please_.

He had thought it over constantly over the last day. Maybe those words hadn’t just been spoken by that dark, terrible spectre of the house. Maybe that had been a little of Emma, _their_ Emma, bleeding through. He had to find out for sure if there was anything but darkness left, and these were the only ways he knew to look for ghosts.

“We’re looking for Emma,” Regina repeated, in a strange tone.

It gave him pause, so he turned to look at her. She looked unfairly doubtful, and it made irritation flare within him. “The house is here, isn’t it? Where it wasn’t before. It stands to reason she could be here too. David _saw_ her. So did Ruby. You said it yourself, something is changing. Why can’t it be her?”

_He’d seen her_, he wanted to say. But something held him back. Something private and longing and scared beyond his wits.

“Why can’t it be her?” he repeated, a little more forcefully when she didn’t immediately reply.

Regina bit her lip, as if trying to work out how best to proceed. She took a few steps forward, the wood underneath her boots creaking loudly.

“You and I both know… Emma wasn’t the _only_ thing there that night. In the dark.”

_Black lightning. Her wrist stained red, angry welts erupting across her forearm. Eyes as dark as obsidian. _

_Killian – Killian, don’t –!_

A wave of nausea rose within him.

“Is it wise for us to start messing with stuff we don’t understand – again?” To her credit she looked like the suggestion made her almost as miserable as it did him, but her nature dictated she give voice to the thoughts that cut everybody to the quick. “I mean, what if this is something _else_, just taking the shape of Emma? And appealing to those made most vulnerable by the sight of her?”

_So good of you to come and see me_.

First David, then him. After all, Mary Margaret hadn’t reported any ghostly sightings, and neither had Regina – and she had practically _drenched_ herself in the supernatural.

Killian shook his head, clutching the dowsing rods tightly.

“But what if it _is_ Emma?” he said finally. The crux of the thing was that he could never ignore her, no matter how sensible the suggestion that he do so. He knew he looked weak, that the confidence he had projected toward Regina since returning to town had crumbled and he must look stupid next to her now, seventeen again and blithering and hopeful beside her world-worn pragmatism. “We have to try.”

He begged her, _pleaded_ with her silently to support him.

Regina was quiet for a long moment, and the EMF reader let out a low _zinging_ noise from where she was pointing it. After a while she sighed.

“Alright,” she said briskly, and Killian visibly sagged with relief. “But I’m going to need _much_ more sage.”

-/-

** October 24th – Five Years Ago **

“Killian, it’s _creepy_ here,” whined Mary Margaret. “When can we go?”

Emma watched as Killian laughed from where he sat across the room, drawing something onto the floorboards in thick, black marker.

“I’m sorry, Mary Margaret. Just indulge me a little longer.”

Brooke House wasn’t nearly as scary the second time Emma had visited it. They had come virtually straight from school, the sky starting to fade from bright blue to soft pink, but while Emma still didn’t exactly relish the idea of being there after dark, it had lost something of its harshness from the last time she’d been there. Somehow, by bringing Regina and Mary Margaret too, expanding their nervous trio out into a confident fivesome, it took power away from the old walls of the house. Regina had laughed when they showed her the spinning wheel, kicking it into an aggressively fast spin while they all gaped and cried for her to stop. Mary Margaret had removed the sheet from one of the armchairs in the sitting room, declared it looked comfortable enough to sleep in and confidently sat herself down – only for a large spider to creep out of the seams of the cushion, and crawl onto the edge of her dress.

Her _shriek_ had nearly brought them all to tears, and Emma hadn’t been able to move or breathe for laughter for at least ten minutes.

Ever since Killian had asked them all to come to the house, and David had taken great pleasure in informing them it was probably _haunted_, Regina had been saying she would bring something to match the occasion, and she did not disappoint. Currently she, David and Mary Margaret sat on the floor (the latter with her skirts bunched up around her, casting nervous, fearful glances around for anymore creepy crawlies) surrounding what Regina had called a _Ouija board_. Emma recognised it only as something she’d once seen on television.

It was an old, polished wood surface ornately decorated, with all the letters of the alphabet and the numbers 0-9 beautifully calligraphed across the top. The symbol of the sun had been drawn in one corner, and a crescent moon in the other. The board came with a planchette, a triangular pointer with a glass circle in the centre to allow you to see the characters underneath. The idea, as Regina explained, was that _spirits_ were supposed to speak through the board, by directing the planchette around its surface to spell out words and wishes.

All three held the tip of a finger on the pointer, and Emma watched with mild interest as it inched across the board. It was all bullshit anyway, but it did add to the atmosphere.

“Mary Margaret, you’re moving the pointer,” Regina scowled.

“I am _not_,” she replied, affronted. “David’s moving it!”

“I’m not! I swear I’m not!”

Regina brushed her hair from her face impatiently. “At least wait until we’ve asked it a question.”

“Where’d you get the creepy board, anyway?” Emma asked.

“My mom was keeping in in the attic, I found it last year when I was looking for Christmas decorations. She was _so_ pissed when I brought it down, made me put it straight back. I always knew she was a bit nuts.” Regina grinned smugly. “So obviously I had to get it out again now the occasion called for it.”

David cleared his throat loudly, drawing their attention back to the board. “Let’s start.” He raised his voice, projecting it around the room and inserting as much grandiose as he could muster. “Are we alone in this house?” The planchette slid across the board, and David sounded out the letters it landed on. “N… O. It said _no_.”

“David, you’re clearly moving it.”

“_I’m not!_”

Leaving them to bicker, Emma turned her attention back to Killian. He had finished what he had been drawing on the floor, and was now scattering salt in a circle around it. Completely entranced in his work, his attention flickered between the salt in his hand and a few battered pieces of paper he had lain flat against the floor. Emma recognised one of them as the one etched with doodles and a few scribbles that they had found in Liam’s toolbox. Somehow, that only increased her feeling of unease.

“Hey,” she said, after crossing the room to sit beside him, hugging her knees to her chest. She was careful not to let her trainers disturb the circle he had made. She also wondered if Archie knew where all the salt at the group home had gone. “You okay?”

He had joked around with them while they let the others explore the house, but had soon retreated to his work. Which, Emma now realised, was a five-pointed star drawn on the floorboards in thick black marker, with each tip touching the edge of the salt circle.

“Yeah,” he replied, flashing her a smile. “I’m almost done.”

Emma bit her lip. “Remind me what it is you’re hoping to achieve? Do you really expect to, uh… summon some kind of ghost?” The look he gave her was unimpressed, but Emma shrugged. He hadn’t exactly given them a lot of clues. “What? I was there with Belle, remember? ‘Do you believe in magic?’”

Emma most certainly did _not_ believe in magic.

The five-pointed star and the circle of salt were telling her something else about Killian, though.

“All I want is to understand. To just – get in his head, I don’t know. He was working on this house for _weeks_, but it looks like all he did was start peeling off the wallpaper. And why did he go and see Belle? Why did he –?”

Drive his car into a ravine? Emma couldn’t count the number of times Killian must have asked himself that.

He shook his head.

“It _has_ to have something to do with this house. And look, these were in his toolbox.” Killian stepped carefully over his handiwork so he could crouch beside her, showing her the piece of paper, curling at the edges. “He drew the pentagram, right there.” He pointed out an image identical to the one Killian had just drawn on the floor. “I was doing a little research into the symbolism, and a lot of Satanic cults use it for, uh, stuff.” He trailed off unconvincingly, and Emma tried not to look the equal parts amused and creeped out that she felt.

“And like he’s done here, I’ll light a candle at each point. The notes he’s actually written are brief so I just had to interpret as best I can – ‘salt circle’ and ‘curvy dagger’. Did you bring your fishing knife like I asked?”

Emma leant forward so she could reach into the back pocket of her jeans to retrieve it. She held it close to her chest for a moment, thinking about all the comfort it had given her back when she was a kid – in a world where she could control so little, she had liked how powerful it made her feel. The first time she had showed it to Killian was when they were fourteen, and his eyes had grown so round that she hadn’t been able to stop herself from giggling.

After a moment of hesitation, she handed it over.

Another of David’s noisy questions out into the room drew their focus.

“Will I become rich and famous one day? Oh – Y… E… S.” He smirked triumphantly. “Well, better start sucking up to me now guys.”

Mary Margaret laughed. “It’s for talking to _spirits_, stupid, not predicting the future.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Regina purred. “Will David get a smack if he keeps moving the pointer? Yeah?”

There was a loud thump as she swatted him on the arm.

“Looks like it tells the future just fine.”

“_Regina!_”

They joined in the laughter with the others, the indignant surprise on David’s face just too funny to ignore; he protested loudly at all attempts of maltreatment, and started entreating the spirits in the house to retaliate on his behalf.

“They think this is a joke,” Emma said quietly, careful to keep her voice low so the others wouldn’t hear her. “Please don’t let it get to you when… _if_ this goes nowhere.”

Killian had started wandering down a dangerous rabbit hole – she just didn’t want him to get hurt.

“Don’t worry,” he assured her, as he started placing candles at the five corners of the star. “Summoning an evil spirit? I have my expectations _really_ low.”

“E…M…M… _Emma_, it’s spelt your name!” Mary Margaret squeaked.

Emma rolled her eyes, growing more tired by the minute of the game Regina had started. “Cut it out.”

“C…O…M…E.”

David narrowed his eyes at Regina suspiciously. “You’re moving it, right?”

Regina glowered back. “No, _you_ are.”

“Guys,” Killian called over, “I’m ready.”

They left the Ouija board where it was, planchette resting atop the E, and came over to join them in the centre of the room. Killian directed each of them to sit at a point on the star, David and Mary Margaret giggling to each other but trying to keep a straight face, before he followed the line of the circle with some matches, lighting each candle. David jokingly blew on his, causing the flame to flicker wildly, and Emma shot him a warning look.

She only wanted them to take it seriously for a few minutes, just for Killian.

“What exactly are we trying to do?” Regina asked, looking bored as she played at dabbing the tip of the flame with her finger.

Emma had been about to bark a rebuke, but Killian beat her do it with an indulgent grin.

“We’re trying to get _results_.”

“I think I saw this ritual on an episode of _Ghost Hunters_,” Mary Margaret whispered excitedly. “See, the wife had murdered the husband, but they found a _second _body buried under the…” She seemed to sense the atmosphere starting to shift to something a little more sombre, and let her sentence trail off.

Killian stepped outside the circle to take his place at the final point of the star, placing the knife carefully in his lap once he was settled. Then they waited.

For a beat, nothing happened at all. The candles flickered in place, they exchanged uncertain looks. The shadows inside the sitting room had grown longer the closer the sun inched behind the trees, and it made the dappled light from the star in front of them look a little more ominous now that daylight was fading.

Regina huffed loudly. “Now what?”

“Erm,” Killian scratched the back of his neck, “I don’t really know.”

“Maybe we should hold hands?” David suggested quickly.

Emma felt that suggestion was probably more to do with the hand he would be holding than wanting to increase their chances of success – and she knew Killian agreed from the amused glance he sent her, but they consented all the same. Mary Margaret blushed as she slipped her hand into David’s.

Killian’s hand in Emma’s was warm, and a little clammy. It didn’t feel like it had the day of her birthday, when he had walked her back to the Nolan house from Granny’s. They had held hands the entire way, continuing to talk with enough forced nonchalance that they both knew the other was also clearly trying to pretend it wasn’t a big deal, hiding their smiles with glances out into the road. Then, it had made her feel dizzy with possibility, the gentle move of his thumb on the back of her hand sending her stomach spinning with delight.

This afternoon it didn’t thrill her the same way. She could feel how nervous he was in the slight tremor of his hand, and as she glanced at Regina on his other side she could tell the other girl could feel it too. Whether it was a sense of compassion for him or a desire to just get it over with, Regina slipped smoothly into control.

“We’re talking to the spirit in this house,” Regina said clearly, firmly, looking up into the ceiling. “Are you there?”

They all waited with bated breath.

“Can you hear us?”

All at once Emma was struck by the old, kind face of Belle Gold, wide eyed and fearful.

_He found – he found a house, in the woods – and he thought it might make him strong._

Something thumped inside her chest. Like static from a radio, she could hear something crackling at her ear, but every time she turned her head toward the sound it disappeared. Twice she cleared her throat to try and speak but no sound came out. She knew, she _knew_, but she didn’t know how she knew, and Killian had turned to look at her, concerned, as her hand tightened on his.

“The knife,” she blurted out, and he raised an eyebrow. “It should be in the middle.”

Killian didn’t question her, merely stared at her curiously as he let go of Regina’s hand to slide the knife into the centre of the circle. It clattered against the floorboards before rolling to a stop in the middle.

But it felt – _wrong_.

“Wrong,” Mary Margaret echoed. Her eyes were closed.

David, too, had shut his eyes, and after Killian had once again completed the circle, Emma did the same. Regina didn’t speak again. Emma sensed she felt the same as she did; they had asked whatever they meant to ask, and it would be cheap to do so again. Only for show. Outside was nothing but stillness, not a sound to drown them out – in fact she had only become conscious of noise in the _absence_ of it, and she now wished she had been playing closer attention to what it was that had stopped dead when they formed the circle.

They had been heard.

“I’m here,” Killian whispered quietly, so quietly Emma couldn’t be sure she hadn’t imagined it. “Find me.”

It had grown colder, gooseflesh beginning to erupt along her arm. Everything began to feel much farther away, as if her ears had popped, and a faint buzzing replaced the quiet that had blanketed them before. Oxygen was taking longer to reach her lungs, like the pressure in the air had changed. She could feel hair rising from the back of her neck and the thought suddenly entered her mind with a shuddering fear that she was about to be struck by lightning.

A rumble sounded from above, the rumble of something trapped beating against impossibly old doors.

_The wardrobe_.

It was all – _wrong_.

_Come_.

_Listen._

Static _zinged_ through her grip on Killian’s hand, and they both yelped and broke apart.

“What?” David spoke first, but the other three were all giving them baffled looks. Both Killian and Emma nursed their injured hands with matching grimaces. “What happened?”

“Electric shock,” Killian answered, shaking his hand out. “_Bloody hell_, ouch.”

“It’s the weather,” Regina offered. “I saw the forecast earlier. It always gets like this right before a storm.” Finally tired of the whole affair, she blew out her candle with an air of finality. “I think we can safely say this house is _not_ haunted.”

Emma was willing her racing pulse to slow, trying to process what the _fuck_ had just happened, but everyone else seemed to be carrying on as if nothing had occurred at all. David was helping Mary Margaret brush cobwebs from her hair while she asked if he wanted to come over to the Blanchard’s for dinner. Regina stood up and began to pack up the Ouija board. Killian stared at the flickering wick of his candle, looking despondent and a little frustrated. All like nothing in the world had taken place.

“Wait,” Emma said, looking around them all at confusion. “Are we really not going to talk about what just happened?”

They all turned to stare at her.

Killian was the first to reply. “What do you mean?”

“The – you know. It went _quiet_. The, uh, atmosphere.” She realised with frustration that it was amazingly difficult to describe, that breathlessness. The sense of standing on the edge and peering out into the dark. “You said it,” Emma pointed at Mary Margaret, remembering now that the girl had spoken. “You said ‘wrong’.”

Mary Margaret frowned. “No I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.” When Mary Margaret again shook her head, Emma grew indignant. “You did!” She hadn’t goddamn imagined it, so why was the other girl bothering to deny it?

“Emma, she didn’t say anything,” David said cautiously. “Nobody said anything until you guys did.”

When she opened her mouth to retort Killian put a hand on her arm. It made her hesitate long enough for them all to brush past the moment.

“This place is creepy,” Mary Margaret declared, “and I’ve got to get home. David, are you coming?”

As Mary Margaret collected her stuff, David looked torn. Emma merely smiled at him weakly, but nodded her head – he should go. She was just… she was overtired. She probably shouldn’t have stayed up so late the night before studying for their calculus test on Monday. And she was letting the feeling of that house, of Killian’s _hopefulness_ in that house get to her, and she’d let herself get carried right along by something else altogether.

They finished helping Regina pack the board away, but Emma stayed behind to help Killian clear up, promising to see the others at school the next day, and David that night once he got back to Ruth’s. The pair of them worked mostly in silence, using the old bucket and sponge Liam had left and a bottle of water to wipe the black marker away from the floorboards. Even amongst the disrepair of the house, it felt dishonest to leave the markings on the floor.

Or perhaps they just didn’t want to leave any permanent evidence of their being there.

“I believe you,” Killian said quietly. “I didn’t hear her, but I believe you. I think these things have to affect all of us differently.”

And by ‘_these things’_, he meant the supernatural. Ghosts. The movement of the planchette across Regina’s spirit board.

Things Emma definitely, _categorically_ did not believe in.

Right?

She dismissed him. “You only think I heard something because you _want_ me to have heard something.” It wasn’t true belief in her, it wasn’t because he knew her to be honest or trusted her. It was because something _else_ was what he had come here for, and her ramblings had been his only glimpse of it.

Killian’s wanting, _longing_, was palpable in his every hopeful inhale.

“That’s unfair.”

Emma chose not to reply.

“What else did you feel? In the circle?”

“Killian, stop.” She made sure her voice was firm. “You promised not to let this get to you. We tried, okay? Nothing happened.”

_They had been heard._

“But you said –”

“I didn’t hear anything, alright? Just forget it.” She stalked over to the window and picked up her rucksack. If she said it forcefully enough to him, she could make it just as true to herself. “Do you want to grab some dinner somewhere?”

She knew she sounded irritated, and Kilian didn’t respond, just watched her from the centre of the room. He was not impressed with her brushing him off, clearly wanted to continue down that line of questioning, and was waiting until she felt ready to talk about it. Suddenly irritated with his saintly level of patience, Emma huffed.

“_Fine_. Stay here by yourself. See if I care.”

Without waiting to see if he would reply, Emma barged out of the front door and stomped down the rotted steps without another word.

-/-

But she couldn’t sleep that night.

Every time she shut her eyes, drifted near enough to something dreamless, images so vivid they felt more real than the bed she lay in assaulted her. Killian’s disappointed expression from the centre of the room, expectant, waiting. The scrape of the pointer across the board. The knife, lying still in the middle of their circle. Firelight flickering. Regina blowing out her candle with a _whoosh_ that seemed to extend for minutes at a time.

The nothing she had felt as she sat and breathed in the circle. That terrible, absence of anything.

She had realised too late that she had left her fishing knife in Brooke House. It was altogether likely that Killian had picked it up, and after a quiet dinner with Ruth she considered going around to the group home to retrieve it from him. Instead, a wave of annoyance had risen in her. If Killian had picked it up, _he_ should have brought it round to _her_. And after the brief spat they’d had before she left the house, she decided, really, he should be the one putting effort in for _her_. Her resolve had strengthened, and she had announced to Ruth that she would be going to bed early.

She had lain awake for a few hours, ears pricked for any noise downstairs. David had come home a little later than expected, had spoken with Ruth for a long time before retreating to his own room. Ruth had stayed in the living room for a while, likely catching up on a few chapters of the novel she had been reading, before Emma heard the creak of the stair indicating she, too, had gone to bed. Killian had not come round. Still the night wore on, and Emma found herself no closer to sleep.

Downstairs the refrigerator hummed, and the electric heater on the landing rumbled, with the occasional _clank_ she had grown used to. On her first night, all the odd sounds of the Nolan house had unnerved her. Much like tonight she had stayed awake for hours, worried she would never be able to sleep, certain the Nolan’s would want to send her back before too long, missing Killian terribly. The further her anxiety had skyrocketed, the more restless she became.

Tonight the noises included the sliding pointer, the squeak of Killian’s pen on the floorboards, Mary Margaret’s quiet whisper, _wrong_.

In Brooke House, something clattered in the attic. The wardrobe doors bumped and groaned.

Emma’s eyes flew open.

_Something was trying to get out_.

Her heart began to thump wildly.

_Come._

_Listen._

She threw back the duvet and reached for her trainers.

Which was the last thing she could remember before she found herself stood in front of Brooke House.

Emma stumbled backwards, as if she were just now falling back into her own body and her knees felt weak with the strain of it, and dry leaves crunched underfoot. She was wearing her trainers. She was also still wearing her pyjama shirt and shorts, but had thrown a hoodie and a coat on over the top. Her legs were bare, and cold. In one hand she held a torch and the other was clenched into a fist at her side.

_Why had she come here?_

Something loud _crashed_ inside the house, a shadow darted across the upstairs window.

Yes, Emma remembered now. She had come for her knife.

She always felt safer with that knife.

Climbing the front steps, slowly, her shoes sounded more muffled than usual. Before she had a chance to touch it the front door creaked open, beckoning her to step inside. She felt foggy, all – all _lost_, and what time was it, anyway? A dazed search of her pockets told her she hadn’t brought her cell phone. Why had she left without it? Why couldn’t she _remember?_

The by now familiar _creak_ sounded from the landing. Emma was halfway up the staircase before she remembered setting her foot on the first step.

For a moment she felt Killian’s hand resting on the small of her back again, ready to steady her if she lost her balance, and she began to lean backwards into it – before it vanished and she had to jerk herself forward to avoid toppling down the stairs. Her hand was so tight on the banister that her knuckles had turned white. Right, Killian wasn’t there. Killian was at home, asleep.

Emma was in Brooke House.

The second floor was lit with tendrils of moonlight, dirty white and shapeless, crawling up the walls and stretching across the floor. The _creak_ sounded again, and Emma gently opened the door to the room with the spinning wheel. As expected, the spinning wheel lay turning slowly on its axis by the soft press of the pedal underneath, except this time a man sat there, steadily feeding in pieces of straw until they came out as spun gold twine, which then pooled into a basket at the end. His face was obscured by the shadow of the windowsill, but he raised a hand in greeting before returning to his work.

She shook her head to try and confirm what she was _seeing_, and realised with a start that the door to the spinning wheel room was closed, and her hand was still poised above the handle. Had she opened it at all? She couldn’t remember. The old wood of the spinning wheel groaned behind the door and, firmly this time, Emma swung the door open inwardly. The wheel spun slowly – but on its own. Gone was the man, the spun gold, the straw. Only the empty dark and the dancing moonlight remained.

An odd noise jerked her attention away from the wheel, just as the light from her torch winked out. Now concerned, Emma smacked it against her palm a few times to try and knock the device back into working, but it did not respond. The sound came again, and to her ears it seemed like –

No, there it was again. She was sure.

It was a _giggle_.

High-pitched and delighted, something was laughing at her.

“Who’s there?” she said. Or did she?

She might have said: “I’m coming.”

Uncertain which she had said and which she had not said, Emma reached the end of the corridor and stood on her tiptoes so she could begin to scrabble with the door to the attic. The metal ring which would allow her to pull it down was just out of reach, but after she asked politely the panel dislodged from the ceiling by itself, and with it came the ladder. She rose one cautious step at a time, up into the black, and tried to remember why she was there.

Her knife, yes. She was coming for her knife. She had been just thirteen when she took it, lifting it from a set of tools a dockworker had left abandoned while he helped unload a seiner, and it had made Emma feel so _dangerous_ to be holding it that she had immediately cradled it with both hands before making her escape. The blade was deadly sharp, far sharper than any knife she had seen in the group home or otherwise, and she had cut her hand while examining it later.

It had reminded her of herself. All along she had been afraid that one day someone might fall on her, and get hurt on all her sharp edges. 

_Another banner year, right?_

_What?_

_We’ve all got ghosts here._

As she reached the top her pulse began to race, and her heart turned her head and waited for her body to catch up. She ignored the desk, the vials, the shattered glass on the floor; like a string had been tied to the centre of her chest, made of hope and sadness and something wild, it propelled her forward to the darkest corner of the room. There, tucked into the downward slant of the roof, stood the wardrobe. It rattled in place, as if someone were stood behind and shaking it back and forth, and she could _feel_ it.

She could feel it wanting, could feel it longing for her, and she longed for it right back. Breathless and exhilarated, she crossed the room in three short steps and knelt before it, hands reaching for the ornate handles on the doors. Darker swirls of colour spun out from the handles and almost seemed to move, curling delicately around her fingers.

_Yes_, they whispered, _come_.

_Listen_.

Emma tugged open the doors.

Which was the last thing she could remember before she found herself in her bed at the Nolan house, blinking against the hazy light of morning.

Once realisation struck Emma bolted upright, glancing wildly about her room. Her trainers were tucked against her dresser, her coat hung on the back of her door. There were leaves in her hair. Once she registered it was morning she scrambled for the clock at her bedside, which read _6.03am_. Almost time to wake up for school.

Had she – had she dreamed it? The house?

It was already beginning to turn foggy and fade, the corners curling in on themselves with greater speed the more she tried to remember, like clutching at the tendrils of a dream that was vanishing out of sight. Everything was as it was.

Except for the knife.

Emma blinked, realising her left hand had been curled around the hilt of a very strange, very ornate knife – no. _Dagger_.

The hilt was black as pitch, and cool to touch, but the blade was what interested her the most. It’s edge was curved, as if it were blurring in and out of sight in the nature of a mirage, and was ornately patterned with twisting black shapes reaching all the way to its desperately sharp point. It was heavy, and unlike anything Emma had ever seen before.

But perhaps what intrigued her the most was the name emblazoned across it, written in an almost medieval cursive.

Weighty in both heft and emotional damage, Emma could scarcely believe it. What did it mean?

For written on it was a name she recognised. One they were _all _familiar with.

_Liam Jones_.

-/-

** 2nd May 2015 – Seven Months Later **

David was the last to arrive by a couple of minutes. Although the air that night was cool, the day had been hot, and he was still dressed in the same t-shirt and shorts he had been wearing earlier. Killian couldn’t be more grateful for the drop in temperature – he could remember a time he had been a fan of the immortal summer, of scorching afternoons and ice cold drinks, it made him think of fly fishing in the lake in the middle of Memorial Park or setting off cheap fireworks by the docks that fizzled and burnt with the whole year’s lost potential. Last year he and Emma had borrowed Archie’s car and driven all the way to Portland, just so they could track down a lobster restaurant a traveller stopping in at Granny’s had told them about. They spent the entire afternoon searching until, tired and hungry, they’d picked up a few sandwiches from a convenience store and perched at the edge of the harbour, watching the boats roll in, and roll away again.

The whole day had been a bust. Killian couldn’t remember it being anything but perfect.

As the days stretched and he found himself looking for her amongst the sun-soaked streets of Storybrooke, summer became just one more thing he wanted no part of anymore.

“Is this going to take long?”

Mary Margaret’s voice jogged him back to the present, and Killian quickly jerked his head around to check nobody else was nearby. They had met at their usual spot, just a little ways into the north woods. Far enough that they would go unnoticed by any stray observer near the edge of the forest, but near enough that the distant sound of cars zooming past on the street could still be heard. Most of them were reluctant to venture any farther in now, if it could be avoided. Especially after dark.

Regina scoffed. “Why, are we keeping you from something?”

“My mom doesn’t like me being out late anymore,” Mary Margaret replied defensively. “I had to sneak out my window.”

“Well, our apologies for the inconvenience.” Unsurprisingly, Regina did not sound that sorry at all. 

“Would you just _stop_?” David groused.

“Guys, please,” Killian interjected, wanting to cut them off before they could start getting too snippy. He turned his attention to Regina. “By the way, are you alright? I hear Humbert gave you a hard time yesterday.”

Regina had been collected from the school gates by Sheriff Humbert, in full view of everyone. He liked them to be observed when he decided to bring them in for another interview; it was one of his favourite tactics.

“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” she shrugged. “It was the same questions as always.”

_Why were you out in the woods? When did you see her last?_

_Is there anything you’re not telling us?_

Smooth, long exhale.

_Nothing, Sheriff Humbert_.

“Good,” Killian answered, nodding slowly. “That’s good. And you, Mary Margaret? Did you get a chance to look for the house this week?”

They had been taking it in turns for the last few months, always making sure that they weren’t spotted together heading down the White Pine Trail, to investigate the place Brooke House had once stood. Ever since the first time they had been caught by Sheriff Humbert there, they had realised the man had started watching their every move in the weeks that followed Emma’s disappearance. Killian, especially, had scarcely been able to get away with taking an unusual route home from school without the sheriff picking up on it. The more time marched forward the less observed they felt, but they still stuck to the same precautions just to be sure.

It had been seven months since Emma had disappeared. Graham Humbert never let him forget it.

And with Emma, Brooke House had also vanished. Nothing stood at the end of the orange string trail Killian had once left anymore, only silence and torment.

Finding it again had to be their best chance at finding _her_. It was just that these days, _finding_ felt a lot more like _waiting_.

Mary Margaret hadn’t answered him, so Killian flicked his eyes over. He could see her eyes were averted, jaw clenched. One of her shoes kept stringing up a restless beat on the floor for a few seconds at a time.

“Mary Margaret?”

She let out an almost irritated sigh. “No, Killian, I have not gone looking for the damn house.”

Killian blinked. “And what’s with the tone?”

“I have to study,” she burst, “I have AP tests in two weeks, and if I don’t pass I probably won’t be able to go to college. And instead, I’m disobeying my parents, standing in the middle of the woods and thinking about how much I _don’t_ know about environmental science.”

Regina looked the way Killian felt; completely dumbfounded. “You’re thinking about _exams_ right now?”

“It’s not just _exams_, Regina,” Mary Margaret insisted. “It’s my life. I want to make something of it one day, and I suggest you do the same.”

Something still had settled between them, as if Mary Margaret had started to lift the lid on something they had sworn to keep closed, and even the night around them was stiffening with anticipation. It was sacred ground on which their harsh words steered them, and it was impossible to discern where the line could be drawn between how to move forward, and how to avoid moving backward. At times they seemed to be the same thing, but somehow it was impossible to think of them the same way.

Emma had wanted to pass her exams too. Desperately, in fact. It had been so important to her that she be able to push off into the rest of her life in better straits than how she had been brought into it, and to that end she had often stayed up long into the night studying at the group home so she could avoid the noise and the steady stream of interruptions that came during the day. It was that which had prompted her to accept Ruth’s offering of a fostering, even after deciding long ago never to hand her heart out again to somebody she was sure would just return it later.

Killian had encouraged her; he had hoped she might find more at the Nolan house than a quiet place to work, and she had. She had found David, and with David came Mary Margaret, and Regina had fallen in as easily with them as she had with Killian and Emma years earlier. They had been a haphazard band, and for a year everything was warm and gold.

That was over now, and they had begun to splinter.

_Killian – Killian, don’t –!_

He heard her, always. Always, always.

“What about Emma?”

It was David who spoke, and he looked stricken to have even needed to say the words.

What _about_ Emma? Was holding onto this, meeting clandestinely in the middle of the night to yet again swap how little progress they had made in getting her back – was this moving forward? Or was this trying so desperately not to move backward that they couldn’t keep their focus on anything ahead? Brooke House was never there when they looked for it. But Killian didn’t care about school, anyway. He’d had enough credits to graduate at the end of his junior year, before all of this. Every AP class he’d taken he had since dropped. Archie had barely been able to convince him to _go_ to school for much of the year.

It didn’t matter to Killian, not a whisper; but was it okay for this to matter to someone else?

“Emma is gone,” Mary Margaret said, quietly. As if scared that they might hear her and yet desperate for them to. “And it’s…” She sucked in a sharp breath before continuing. “It’s _devastating_. But it’s – it’s been seven months. We have nothing. And more importantly, the _police_ have nothing.” Killian could tell from a subtle movement in her fist that she was trembling. With fright, anger, sadness. Who could know for sure? “Finding Emma, if she can be found, should be up to them.”

Killian felt as if he’d been slapped. “How can you say that?”

“It’s their job, isn’t it?” she bit back. “And the more I think about that night… the more _we_ feed into that – that hysteria, or – or whatever we _thought_ we saw – the less help we’re being to them. The police, I mean.”

Killian felt his temper rising. He _knew_ what he had seen – they had _all_ seen it, although for reasons Killian couldn’t fathom, it had become a matter of spirited debate between Mary Margaret and David, and he and Regina.

“We never should have lied,” Mary Margaret continued firmly. “We should have told them everything from the start, about the house, about all of it.”

“They would have told us we were crazy,” Regina pointed out. “Hell, _I_ would have called you crazy if I hadn’t seen it myself.”

“But at least I wouldn’t _feel like this_!” Mary Margaret’s voice cracked on the last syllable, and the bite in her expression had crumpled. She was all melancholy, draped in it like an old cloak, where in their group she had always been warmth. Everything was twisted now, like none of it could ever be light again. “Like I have this weight, poised above my head, and I’m just waiting for it to – to fall and crush me. And it _hurts_.” She clutched at her throat, eyes wide and sad. “And I’m breathless, and scared. All the time. And sometimes – sometimes I don’t realise I’ve forgotten that it’s there, but then I look up –”

David had taken a few steps closer to her, and put his arm around her shoulders. She curled into it and buried her face into his chest for a few moments, shaking, while he murmured something neither Killian nor Regina could hear. They couldn’t find the words to interject.

After a few long moments she gathered herself, her fist clenching into David’s shirt.

“It’s this _lie_,” she said fiercely, speaking into the solidness of David’s form, sounding as wretched as she looked. “And this feeling that if – if we’d just told the truth then they would have found something, and they would have found _her_.”

The accusation was softly cushioned, and gently aimed, but Killian felt it with the keen force of any blow.

“They wouldn’t have found her,” he answered evenly. They _couldn’t_. “It’s up to us.”

She let out a bitter laugh. “Of course you would say that.”

Killian’s temper flared. “Excuse me?”

“It clearly doesn’t bother you, Killian, but I’m just saying – if I could do this again I wouldn’t lie.”

_I wouldn’t tell the lie you told me to tell._

The lie he had told them tell to protect _them_.

Humbert’s hard expression flashed in front of him.

_Your friends say she was with you when she went missing. That you were the last one to see her._

“I wouldn’t either,” David added quietly.

Disbelief marred everything, it made everything black as tar – was this really what it was all coming to? Rounding on him?

“And what would you have told them?” Killian shot back. When David grimaced he pressed on. “No, really, I’m interested to know what you would have told the sheriff about the haunted house and the magic dagger.”

“Stop that,” Mary Margaret snapped, “it’s not magic.”

“Then how the bloody hell do you explain it? Explain _this_?”

With intent, Killian reached into his jacket and pulled out the dagger. Its curving edges glittered dangerously in the dim light, and in a movement so quick he might have imagined it he thought he saw Regina reach out a hand to take it, before snatching it back. The intricate pattern engraved onto the blade was one he had memorised from long nights spent staring at its edges, begging for it to reveal its secrets. The inky black writing crafted beautifully on top spoke of everything they had lost – the truth they all knew, and the only tangible proof that forces greater than themselves were at work.

The name carved across it was clear:_ Emma Swan_.

Like a spell, it brought with it an almost supernatural quiet. Mary Margaret had begun to weep silently, and she shrugged away from David’s touch this time. Regina watched but did not speak. David couldn’t bear to do more than glance at the dagger, a pained expression on his face clear before he turned to look out into the forest.

“_This_ is how we know she’s still out there,” Killian insisted fiercely. “We can’t give up now. Not after everything we’ve been through.”

For a little while, the only noise was Mary Margaret, trying to suppress a gasp or wiping her eyes with the edge of her sleeve. After some time, she sank down to perch on a nearby log and Regina joined her, threading their fingers together tightly. In the distance Killian could hear the rumble of the road, the sound of an engine increasing in volume before skittering away. Although reluctantly, he slipped the dagger back into the inside pocket of his jacket, and the blade was cool against his chest even through the fabric of his shirt. A cold comfort, but a comfort all the same.

“The truth is,” Mary Margaret began quietly, staring at the mossy ground at their feet. “I want to grieve. I loved Emma. I want to treasure her memory… I want the chance to _miss_ her.” She lifted misty eyes and looked at each of them in turn. “But it’s impossible around all of you. For you she’s still here. But I want to keep moving forward.” She brushed a hand across a tear-stained cheek. “Will you – will you let me do that?”

With quiet strength, she dug the stake into the earth. Beneath it, they cracked.

She stood. There wasn’t anything else to say.

She looked impossibly guilty, and Killian searched for something to say that would deliver her from that, but all of it felt brittle and fake. The honest truth was that he loved her and wanted nothing but her happiness, but he might never forgive her if she walked out of that clearing now.

Mary Margaret looked to all of them, but it was Killian’s gaze she sought most eagerly. He couldn’t give it, staring stonily at the ground instead.

“I’ll… I’ll see you.”

She didn’t say _at school_, since he wouldn’t be going anyway and they both knew it. Recklessly, he thought that without it there might not be another excuse for their paths to cross. If she wanted to keep moving forward and leave all this in the past, then Killian would not be going with her. Dry leaves crunched as she departed, slowly receding until the only sound was the breeze whistling by.

“I’m not giving up. No way.”

It was Regina who had spoken, and Killian felt a wave of unreserved tenderness for her.

Her face softened, and she stepped over to lay a gentle hand on his arm.

“She’ll come around.”

She wouldn’t, but it was easier to pretend.

After Regina had gone Killian sat on the damp earth underneath him, leaning his head back to stare through the canopy. The trees had clustered together here, dark shapes towering over through which he could spot the stars winking in and out.

David shifted from where he stood. “Are you okay?”

Killian let out a long breath, one that he felt like he had been holding onto for a number of days. His chest felt tight, and he could feel a familiar tugging sensation behind his nose as the stars started to swim before him.

“Belle died. Yesterday.”

David let out a soft expletive. “I’m so sorry, Killian.”

“It was peaceful,” he nodded to himself, like it made everything fine. “In her sleep.”

Belle had been a great source of comfort for him. She talked in circles and remembered very little, but she remembered _Liam_ and often asked after Emma, and had lived a deep and fulfilling life she loved to tell him about. It did her good to talk, the nuns had said, which was why they let him come. Every character in all of her stories was long gone now, but it didn’t cause her any pain. She spoke only of the joy in having known them and the colours with which they had brushed her soul. It didn’t matter how lonely it looked now, or how sad everyone else thought she must be to be alone; she had assured him many times that she was lucky, and wanted for little else.

He wanted desperately to feel like that, even if only for a heartbeat.

_Sometimes_, she had said with a smile, _the best books have the dustiest jackets_.

“It just feels like everything is slipping away.”

Mary Margaret, Belle. Liam. Emma. Everything he touched was dust.

_Don’t tell me – it’s hot cocoa, with cinnamon, and you’re about to hand it over_.

A hot tear spilled down his cheek and he angrily swiped it away.

He cleared his throat loudly, mostly to try and cover the sudden rush of emotion, but he knew that David had seen it. “Sometimes I can’t help but think… maybe it’s all in my head, you know? The more I think about that night the hazier it gets.” Like trying to remember a dream after you’d woken from it, every single day more details faded into nothing. “I just hear her.” That final, startled scream. It would never leave him, he just knew it. “All I can hear is her.”

_Killian – Killian, don’t –!_

“Me too,” David admitted quietly. “I hear it too.”

“I’m leaving,” he said suddenly, and with the confession came a twinge of relief, and he forgave himself a little more for it. “Right after graduation. I have to find an answer, and there isn’t one here.”

He’d go as far as needed, for as long as it took. He’d walk the stretch of the Earth if he had to.

For a moment David looked crestfallen, but he mastered it quickly. “I understand,” he said. And he might think he did – but David would never be looked at the way Storybrooke looked at Killian. In their eyes he would never be blameless, not the way the David Nolan was. Emma was his sister; she was just Killian’s victim.

“I’d go too,” David continued, “but my mom… it’s just hard, you know? I feel like there’s so much she doesn’t know. And I couldn’t…”

“I know,” Killian assured him, “it’s alright. I wouldn’t ask you to come.” It was something he would rather do alone.

A few moments of stillness passed, before David let out a low whistle.

“So. Right after graduation, huh?”

Killian nodded. June twenty-third, 18:00.

There was a bus to Augusta that he had promised he would not miss.

-/-

** Present Day **

As night fell, Killian again returned to Brooke House.

He had already spent much of the day there with Regina, taking readings, burning herbs and mumbling variations on familiar incantations from her book of shadows. There were a few key vocabularic differences, but the intention behind a few spells seemed similar to some he had seen from the coven in Pennsylvania. Just once they had let him sit in on a cleansing ceremony, a practice of healing for the soul, and he could recognise some of the actions as Regina guided him through a ritual for cleansing the air in the house. Smudging, she called it. But by the time they had departed in late afternoon, visibly nothing had changed within the house.

After grabbing a quick bite at Granny’s Killian had spent the remainder of early evening categorically working through all the other data he had been able to gather over the course of the day; and not one instrument had indicated anything outside of the realms of a normal abandoned house. In fact, most of the anomalous readings one could expect from a long period of constant use (a sudden spike in electromagnetic radiation, a noise in static on a recorder where there had been none aloud) were completely non-existent. Brooke House was as silent as the dead other than the sounds he and Regina made. It were as if they were measuring nothing at all.

No doubt, that was its intention.

He expected much to be different in the dark.

Again, he left the dagger rolled up in his scarf in his car, not wanting to bring it any closer to Emma – or to whatever Emma _was_. They were clearly linked, the spectre of the house and the dagger, and he had to believe that somewhere buried in there was _his_ Emma. She retained the same memories, even if she warped them for her use. She recognised him. It was _her_ name on the dagger.

He had taken the dagger to three different psychometrists over the years, seeking insight. Each one had only been able to tell him that its origin was evil, that its master was lost.

Even Killian could have surmised that much.

“Emma?” he called, as he stepped over the threshold. Only creaks of old wood answered back.

He lingered briefly in the sitting room, checking his old tape recorder that he had left running, tucked under the sheet of one of the armchairs as gently as possible. He wanted to avoid the possibility of muffling any sound while also trying to prevent its detection from any nefarious spirits that chose not to make a sound while he and Regina were there. All he needed was some kind of proof that _something _in the house moved when it was left to its own devices. In the morning he would return for it and listen for any erroneous sound.

As if reading his thoughts, an audible _thump_ came from above him. He headed back out into the hall. For now, Killian decided to pocket the recorder and return it after he’d come to say what he meant to.

Again Killian called Emma’s name, mounting the stairs slowly. Once he reached the top he spotted the flash of white fabric trailing along the floor, disappearing into one of the rooms on the landing. Aside from the room with the spinning wheel that never faltered, Killian hadn’t spent much time in the other two rooms. One was a bedroom and the other a study, boasting only a desk and a wall lined with ancient, brittle bookcases, the tomes atop them turned grey with age with faded and illegible titles. It was into the study that he had seen her go, so Killian opened the door cautiously so as not to startle her away.

The bottom shelf of the bookcase nearest the door had collapsed, the books falling into a haphazard clump onto the floor. A dust cloud still lingered so he imagined it couldn’t have happened too long ago; he wondered if that was the noise he had heard from downstairs.

Emma stood with her back to him, the rustle of pages the only indication that she was moving. Then, without warning, she swung her right arm back and hurtled the book against the wall. The binding tore with a _snap_, and in pieces it clattered down onto the ground. Killian, reluctant to become a target for one of those heavy missiles, cleared his throat to announce himself, but quickly tucked the tape recorder subtly into one of the bookcases as he did so. He didn’t want her to catch it on him.

Emma turned, her jade eyes sharp in the gloom. As always, they cut right through him.

“Have you decided?” she said, her voice as heavy as stone.

Killian didn’t answer immediately, but tried to look at her more critically. What was he seeing? Just what he wanted to see, or something more?

Regina’s warning repeated itself over and over. _What if this is something else, just taking the shape of Emma? And appealing to those made most vulnerable by the sight of her?_

“Why didn’t you show yourself to Regina?”

They had been at Brooke House all day, there was ample opportunity. Not a creature had stirred out of place, as if the house had been holding its breath and waiting for them to leave. That meant one of two things – Emma did not think Regina could help with what she wanted, or there was nothing of Emma to show.

Emma lifted a shoulder in a half shrug and turned back to the bookcase. She picked up another book, and began lazily flipping through its contents.

That, too, found itself tossed to the edge of the room.

“I didn’t feel like it.” She reached for another.

“Come here,” he said, before he felt he’d truly made the decision. “Let me look at you.”

She turned slowly to stare at him; it was clear in her expression that she was unaccustomed to receiving orders, and was flirting with the idea of being furious, or going along with it. Keeping her eyes locked on his she discarded her final book, letting it flutter onto the floor, and started to walk towards him. It felt distinctly like being stalked by a predator, and he resisted the urge to step back when she came to a stop in front of him, looking up.

Instead he steeled his resolve, and lifted his thumb and forefinger to her chin. Her skin was glacial to the touch, pale and smooth. Like marble.

Applying a little pressure, Killian turned her head first to one side, then to the other. She allowed him, her eyes continuing to follow him intently. Up close, she looked human. With a little more colour in her cheeks she would look just like he remembered her. Would it even be possible, he wondered, for him to conjure up something so near to perfection? Was he capable? Could he really have imagined this?

“I’m so sorry,” he sighed sadly, brushing his fingers along her jaw, stilling them when they reached the tip of her neck.

Emma tensed underneath him. “What for?”

The list was unending.

“All of it.”

Something flickered across her expression, but it had moved too quickly for him to notice it. A blackened petal dropped from the circlet around her head, and became tangled in her hair. Without thinking, Killian gently tugged it loose.

“You don’t need to be sorry.”

A cold hand came to rest over his. Then, to his surprise, she lifted herself onto her tiptoes and leaned forward. Too shocked to move, Killian froze in place as she reached him. Like the rest of her, her lips were icy to touch, and moved gently against his like the purl of the ocean against the sand. His eyes stayed open but he could see hers had fluttered closed – she looked unarmed. Gentle. Like a girl.

She pulled back because he did not know how to keep her, and he could feel now that he was trembling. He was cold, his heart ached with grief, and he was furious.

That was a kiss that he had been saving, and she had taken it.

He opened his mouth to rattle off a rebuke, but something in her manner had changed. Her brows had knitted a little closer together, her lips parted – even her eyes looked as if they might have dulled from their usual startling shade.

Recognition fluttered across her features. She blinked slowly. “Killian?”

Killian’s heart began to hammer against his ribcage. Hope stuttered to life with every beat, but he tried to remain cautious. Something was different, he was sure of it, and now he wished he had been paying closer attention to her before so he might able to more clearly see now what had changed.

He watched her warily. “Emma?”

It happened in painfully slow motion. Her eyes glazed over, she turned herself away, something that had been out of alignment clicked back into place. In an almost unnatural way her head tilted, and began to stare at him with those new, wide eyes.

Her lips curled in a snarl. “That’s enough of that.”

A rush of air blew past him and she was gone, but Killian, exhilarated and almost breathless, couldn’t let her go.

“Wait, I –” He caught her in the hallway, her hand resting on the door to the spinning wheel room. She whirled around to face him expectantly, eyes ablaze. “I’ll do it. I’ll help you.”

The corner of her mouth curved upwards, a smirk rising into place.

Killian swallowed. He’d been at her mercy since the moment he laid eyes on her.

“Just… tell me what you need me to do.”


	5. 5 - ghosts were created

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is chapter five! some answers are finally upon us, as we rattle towards the story's conclusion. again, sending huge amounts of love and thanks to each and every one of you, I'm beyond thrilled you're enjoying this spooky ride with me and I hope you like where it goes! HUGE amounts of gratitude to @HollyeLeigh (@hollyethecurious on tumblr) for this glorious aesthetic which basically made the fic write itself~! enjoy!

** October 25th 2014 – 5 Years Ago **

She managed to catch David, Regina and Mary Margaret before they headed home after school, and drew them around the back of the building in order to afford some privacy. First, Emma had shown them the dagger, and then she had told them about the visit she and Killian had paid to Belle Gold. Then finally, and she had hoped Killian would forgive her for doing so, she had filled in some of the gaps in their knowledge surrounding the circumstances of Liam Jones’ suicide – the house, the papers, stuff they might have been too young to fully realise when it happened. And the fact that, some weeks before he died, he had been exploring the possibility of something more… _supernatural_ making itself known within Brooke House. Something that the existence of the dagger might now lend far greater credence to.

Her fingertips tingled with the strange truth of it all.

Magic existed, and Emma did not know how much that changed the world.

They had been silent for a long time, exchanging doubtful looks that Emma understood but did not care for, but when it became clear she wasn’t going to jump up and shout ‘_just kidding!_’, David was the first to speak up.

“This is crazy, you know that, don’t you? You know this is crazy.”

“I know how it sounds,” she said, willing herself to look as sincere as possible. “And without the dagger I’d have written it all off as _completely _mad.” She gestured to the aforementioned implement, sitting on the ground between the four of them. None of them seemed to want to touch it.

“How _did_ you find the dagger?” Mary Margaret asked.

Emma felt her cheeks warm, and thought about how she had found herself back at Brooke House last night. None of it was clear in her memory, just vague flashes of feeling, and it was a struggle to try and muddle through the fog. When she had awoken in her room she had been tired and groggy, and it certainly felt like she had been up half the night – but the truth was she just couldn’t know for sure if that strange, breathless walk by midnight was something she had imagined. Whatever had happened, stumbling about the woods at night in her pyjamas made her an idiot, so she had already decided she would be leaving that detail out.

“I left something at the house yesterday,” she said, avoiding a lie. “I went back for it after we’d all left, and I found it there.”

David had been for dinner at Mary Margaret’s house – there was nothing to suggest anything otherwise had happened.

Regina stalked forward and reached down for the dagger, whipping it off the ground with speed; to her surprise, Emma felt herself almost lunging forward to stop her before she stayed the movement. The callous handling of the dagger was suddenly so distressing to her. She forced herself to stay put, and let Regina carry on her examination. She traced the tip of a perfectly manicured finger over the grooves where Liam’s name had been carved into it.

“Alright, say it’s true,” she declared imperiously, eyes snapping onto Emma. David made to protest and Regina silenced him by raising a hand. “Say all of it _is_ true. That there’s something going on with that house, and that it has something to do with how Liam died. If so, then why on _earth_ are we messing around with the same stuff? If it’s all connected, surely following directly in his footsteps is a way to get us _all_ dead at the bottom of that ravine.”

She flinched at the harshness of her words, but could understand the sentiment. Emma had been turning the same thought over in her mind the entire day – these were clearly forces beyond their understanding, maybe even beyond their control. So she decided to reveal one final detail.

“The truth is…” Emma began reluctantly. God, she hoped Killian would forgive her for saying this. “They never found a body. Liam’s body, I mean. There was enough evidence to suggest he had definitely been in the car, enough to rule out any reasonable doubt. And the river down there is aggressive, so the consensus was that it was probably swept out to sea. But they never actually found anything.”

Killian had told her this once, quietly. Had whispered it into the air when they were thirteen, as if he had just wanted to see how it would sound to admit out loud that, sometimes, he imagined it meant Liam was still alive.

Regina’s eyes dropped warily to the dagger in her hands. _Liam Jones_, it still said. As if worried she might meet a similar fate, she carefully laid it back on the ground and stepped away.

“What if this means that not only was Liam _not_ crazy, but it could mean… well, I don’t have to spell it out.”

She didn’t want to say it, because to give it a voice would make it sound ludicrous and outrageous and would probably make them all give up on the idea, herself included. The others felt the same, she could sense it, but they were also all thinking the same thing.

What if it meant that something _else_ had happened to Liam Jones? That maybe, and there was the slimmest chance for it, but it was there all the same – that Killian’s most fervent, irrational hope might be true. That he _was_ still alive.

“Then we have to try.”

Emma was surprised to see it was Mary Margaret who had spoken, but felt immensely relieved to hear it. She had been sure the other girl would be the hardest to persuade.

David almost looked alarmed. “You _believe_ all this?”

“I don’t know what I believe,” she said, and Emma could see doubt still marred her expression. “But I know what I hope, for Killian. If there’s any chance… we owe it to him to do this.”

Emma agreed wholeheartedly. “Exactly.”

Trying to summon some kind of evil spirit, or _demon_, or whatever she had felt inside that house may not be exactly what they wanted to do, but whether it succeeded or not, whether it was real or not, helping Killian was more important than any of that. Best case scenario, they discovered something important, something that changed theirs and Killian’s lives forever. Worst case scenario, it might stop Killian wondering. It might bring him some form of closure.

Emma picked up the dagger, and the metal felt warm to the touch. Welcoming. As if it were _telling_ her to believe this would work, in the best way that they all wanted. It strengthened her resolve.

David and Regina exchanged looks, but they also agreed.

Which was what brought them later to the end of the gravel driveway of the group home, after Emma had asked Archie if Killian was around to come outside and join them. It still felt somewhat odd, even after a year had passed, to be knocking on the front door to the group home and behaving like a guest. In a lot of ways it still _was_ her home, Archie’s kindly smile still her welcome, the redbrick walls the backdrop to her life. It was here she had experienced most of the formative moments of her life.

Although she cared very deeply for both David and Ruth, and was grateful for everything they had done for her, the quietly realised truth in her heart was that they had come a little too late.

Killian looked bewildered as they all recounted what they had decided eagerly, talking over each other in their enthusiasm to let him know they were here, they wanted to help, they’d do whatever he needed them to. He took the dagger from Emma as if in a daze, tracing the letters of his brother’s name faintly, but tenderly.

“You’d do this?” he said finally, still uncertain. “For me?”

“Of course,” Regina replied smoothly, as if just an hour earlier she hadn’t been voicing her own, significant doubts. “We’re your friends.”

“We’re in this together,” David agreed. “But you definitely have Emma to thank.”

Emma felt her face flush when he turned his gaze on her, and memories of their time spent at Granny’s on her birthday swam to the surface. He was looking at her like she’d hung the stars.

That wasn’t it at all – she’d just found the dagger, nothing more. Killian had done all the legwork. She was just stitching the fragments together.

His lips parted, and she had a sudden urge to stop him as she felt he might say something horrendously heartfelt and embarrassing in front of the others, so she spoke over him quickly.

“You can thank me later,” she said briskly, flashing him a smile. “But we’ve got to catch ourselves a demon first.”

They agreed on the following night, Thursday, as they didn’t have school on Friday thanks to a local holiday. After they parted ways, Killian keeping a tight hold of the dagger, Emma felt a certain buoy in her step but she couldn’t really work out why – it was that powerful sense of _doing_, of really getting ready to achieve something for a friend that had her so motivated.

David teased her about it, but she let him. Her mind was already on tomorrow evening, and the secrets they might uncover in the walls of Brooke House.

-/-

** Present Day **

_Killian – Killian, don’t –!_

Killian jerked himself back to the present.

When David had asked to meet him he couldn’t help the surge of relief within him; it hadn’t done much for his already troubled mind to remain at odds with the other man, especially not when he was one of the few people in Storybrooke who didn’t actively shoot poison at him through their eyes whenever they passed him on the street. He knew his continued association with Regina couldn’t have gone unnoticed, nor their frequent trips out into the forest while they visited Brooke House. They had spent a few days with their full, combined efforts on the house, but had turned up nothing.

Unless he was alone, Emma refused to make her presence known. With every passing day, Regina’s scepticism that there was anything to be found in Brooke House continued to grow, and he knew he was running out of time.

He had promised the dark, moonlit vision of Emma that he would help her escape Brooke House; she had begun instructing him immediately. She suggested herbs to burn and in which order, phrases to be spoken aloud and the intention with which they should be uttered, and Killian had begun slipping some of these practices into he and Regina’s attempts, passing them off as something he had learnt while he was away. What the spectre of the house did not realise was that he fully intended to release Emma – _his _Emma, and her alone. He was _sure_ she was in there, she just had to be. The only thing left to figure out was how to get her out, and weakening some of the enchantments around the house had to play a part in that. So for now, their goals somewhat aligned.

David had asked to meet by the lake in Memorial Park, and Killian had arrived a good ten minutes early. It was only because his plan for the morning had been for naught – on a whim, and because it was nearby, he had decided to visit the group home. He wasn’t exactly sure why. Mostly, he felt like the person he wanted to speak to most was Archie Hopper, and although he had been hoping he might run into him around town by an act of providence, it was yet to occur.

Archie’s counsel hadn’t always been something welcome to Killian. He had been a stable enough figure in his teenage years, when stability had been the thing he lacked most in the world, but after Emma’s disappearance Killian had forced a gulf between them as wide as he could muster. He hadn’t wanted to look at Archie’s kind, sad face any longer, and he had vehemently rejected any attempts of comfort, or wisdom, when all he had wanted was to be angry that the world was not done taking people from him.

They had spent much of the year on bad terms, but had departed on worse. Their final argument after Killian announced his plans to leave town the evening following graduation had been full of vitriol and spite – all stemming from himself. Archie had wanted him to stay, to grow, to move past his personal tragedies and face those who condemned him. Killian had wanted to disappear. With reluctance, the older man had let him go – but the worst of it was that this had only made more concrete his younger self’s belief that nobody would fight for him anymore, not even Archie.

With age he could see the affection Archie had borne for him for what it was – genuine, and without conditions. He had been able to feel his heart pounding as he raised a knuckle to the old wooden door of the group home, anxious at the idea of meeting him again, of giving the apology he knew to be long overdue.

He needn’t have fretted. The social worker at the door informed him, rather tersely, that Archie had moved on some years ago and no longer worked there. Perhaps his disappointment had shown rather more clearly than he intended, as the young woman took pity on him and told him that the last she had heard he had moved to Portland, but even that information might now be outdated. She offered to see if a forwarding address had been left for him, but Killian assured her it was fine, and thanked her for her trouble.

His heart felt like a lead weight. There was so much he had wanted to say, and he was sure he might never get the chance to now. To clear his head he had taken a few turns around the park, but like everywhere else in Storybrooke it was drenched in memories of Emma, sweet and sad, of water fights on the grass or climbing trees as tall as their younger bodies could manage.

Before long, he found himself at the edge of the lake, awaiting David’s arrival. The afternoon was brisk, and he was regretting his decision not to wear gloves as his fingers felt brittle and slow, now curled up in the pockets of his jacket. The sky had turned a bruised grey, and the surrounding forest left the surface of the water the murky colour of moss, disturbed only by the occasional ripple of wildlife or the breeze brushing across it.

“Hey.”

Killian turned and found David striding towards him, a look of trepidation clear on his face. David had always worn all of his emotions on his sleeve. They exchanged a few awkward pleasantries, but it didn’t take long for David to jump to the heart of the matter.

“I’m sorry I blew up at you,” he said quickly. “It was unfair.”

“You don’t need to apologise,” Killian assured him. “You were right – I haven’t been here. I should have been more sensitive to how much things had changed.”

For a moment he thought about the first few months of their senior year, before it all happened. The five of them had been thick as thieves. Killian and Regina had always been friendly due to a shared acerbic sense of humour, but it wasn’t until Emma had brought David and Mary Margaret into their lives that he had really, truly begun to think of anyone else other than Emma as a close friend.

Killian could almost see them now, clustered in a circle at the end of the driveway of the group home, telling him in no uncertain terms that they’d like to give summoning a demon a go, just because friendship didn’t need any other excuses.

“I know you don’t care for Regina much anymore, but she’s been really helpful.” He let out a long breath. “Still has the emotional capacity of a lawnmower, but in her own way I think she’s been looking for Emma all this time.”

Looking for magic, looking for purpose, perhaps. To Killian it was all the same thing.

“We tried to be there for her, after her dad died,” David shrugged, but he clearly carried some remorse over it. “She didn’t want to know.”

That didn’t surprise him. She had only been nineteen, and she had become distant enough after Emma disappeared, even to him. With a twinge of regret he considered that perhaps his sudden up and leaving after graduation didn’t do much for her ability to rely on others, not that she would ever admit it. Just one more thing he’d done wrong that year.

They started walking, catching up properly in a way they hadn’t had a chance to since Killian came back to town. David talked about his job at the animal shelter, where old schoolmates had ended up, how Ruth was faring. Killian coasted over the harsher details, but tried to give David a similar recount of what he had been doing with himself over the past five years. It mostly consisted of travel stories, of the odder jobs he had picked up on the road in order to keep himself afloat. He didn’t want to talk about living hand to mouth, of the multitude of nights he had spent freezing and sleeping fitfully in his car, or the _reasons_ he had chosen certain places to visit, and their penchant towards the supernatural. It was easier to pick the funnier things to talk about, and he sensed David knew he wasn’t telling the whole story, but probably preferred it that way.

After a little while, when they had almost exhausted every other curiosity, Killian finally decided to bring it up.

“Do you want to come?” he asked, gently. “To Brooke House?”

David’s steps faltered, and Killian could see his eyebrows had knitted together in concern.

He swallowed. “Is – is she –?”

“She’s there,” Killian admitted, even if he hadn’t done the same for Regina. David had seen her, after all. A troubled mix of joy and trepidation overcame David’s expression, a smile threatening to pull at the corners of his mouth, and although Killian hated to pull the rug from under him, he didn’t think it would be fair to give him false hope. “She’s… not herself. But I think you know that.”

David deflated instantly.

“So it’s – it’s what I thought, then. It’s not really _her_. Emma. It’s just… that house.”

Killian had found himself wondering the same thing. “I’m not sure. I’m investigating, Regina is helping me.” He hesitated, but decided to offer again. “Do you want to come?”

Emma had been special to David in ways far different to Killian. Killian may have shared a roof with Emma for many more years than David had, but he was under no illusion as to what his true feelings for Emma had been – David’s had been much more fraternal. The idea of not being able to protect her had hit him particularly hard, even if Emma had only ever indulged his strong sense of brotherly vigilance with an arched eyebrow.

It would be difficult for him to see her as she was now; fragile, unhinged. Twisted. It was why Killian had initially wanted him as far from it all as possible.

To his surprise, David actually agreed with him.

“No, I – I don’t, really,” he said, wincing as if he were afraid Killian might be cross. How could he be, when he understood better than anyone? “I want to remember her the way she was. I don’t want this to…”

He trailed off. Killian tried to look as understanding as possible, to assure him it was all perfectly fine. From the miserable look David was giving him, he wasn’t sure he succeeded.

“I should never have called you,” he muttered with dismay, “and put you through all this again. I brought you right back into it.”

Killian smiled ruefully. “The truth is, David, I never really left it.”

For a long while they were silent, only the rustling of trees surrounding them, and Killian felt that even the chirping of birds sounded morose and downcast.

It was difficult to find reasons to stay cheerful.

“Let me take you somewhere,” David said finally. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to show you.”

Seeing no reason not to, he allowed David to take the lead. He led them farther into Memorial Park, and Killian realised with reluctance that he was taking them in the direction of the old chapel behind the Convent of the Sisters of Saint Meissa. He wasn’t too thrilled about it, not just because of the unhappy association with Belle Gold that the convent reminded him of, but also because he had a strong inkling of why he was being brought here, and he didn’t much care for it.

Following David past the chapel, his sense of foreboding only grew as they began to walk cautiously among the headstones of the graveyard, many weathered with age and moss as if they had sprouted from the ground themselves. After they had passed a tall statue of a woman cradling her face in her hands, David slowed to a stop and turned.

Killian froze. From where he stood, he could see only the back of the headstone. The stone was light, an unremarkable, opalescent grey, unmarked by time. It was impossible to see whose name had been engraved across it without closing the distance between he and David and turning around, but it was also impossible to imagine it being for anyone else.

Killian stood, stranded between it _being_ her and _not being_ her, and felt a weary agitation begin to rise in his gut.

“I – can’t.”

David seemed to understand, for he didn’t beckon him any closer.

It was odd, Killian felt, that David could not bear to see Emma alive, but at Brooke House – and yet Killian could not bear to think of her dead, at peace, in the earth.

“We had a service, just a little while after graduation,” he said, quietly, crouching down in front of the stone. “When they officially closed the investigation. I didn’t want to, it felt like… but I agreed for Mom, you know?”

Ruth had taken Emma’s disappearance almost as hard as Killian had. Certainly as hard as Archie had, and Killian had done nothing but punish him for it.

“I wanted to invite you. I _would_ have invited you.” The hurt in his tone was unmistakable. “I had no idea where you were or how to contact you.”

A full year had passed by the time Killian tried to touch base with his friends from Storybrooke – he had bought a phone, and texted David the number. By then he had missed the death of Regina’s father, and whatever event had finally made the gulf between her, Mary Margaret and David unbridgeable. Truly, he was relieved. Killian didn’t have the heart to tell him just how vehemently an invitation to a funeral service for Emma would have been rejected.

He said nothing.

“It might help,” David suggested. “To see it.” He reached out the tip of his fingers to gently trace the words, gaze flickering up to where Killian stood a few feet away. Killian shook his head tightly. “Maybe it would be better if we all just let go.”

Killian struggled with his reply, forcing down the wave of indignation that came with the suggestion. “I appreciate what you’re trying to say, Dave. But I can’t. If roles were reversed, Emma would never have let go of me.”

She didn’t, in fact, when Killian had been nothing more than a ghost himself. Twelve-years-old and she had clung on tight.

David acquiesced, but he did not look like he agreed.

They waited for a little while, breathing between the whistle of birdsong, remembering. Then David stood, and wordlessly they began the slow walk back into the park. Killian left the headstone unread.

In his fractured heart, there was nothing else but her. There was no other choice.

-/-

** October 29th – 10 Years Ago **

Killian’s new room was cold.

The group home was much airier than the little flat he had shared with Liam, which had been only a small bedroom attached to a sitting room. They had just one window, and in the summer it had been unbearably hot; he had spent many an hour sat miserably in front of the cheap fan Liam had picked up from a convenience store, begging for fall. When they moved in Liam had insisted Killian take the only bedroom while he slept in the sitting room, which Killian did not envy in the balmier evenings.

By contrast, the group home was all flat edges and cold surfaces. The corridors were so wide you could fit three people standing abreast, and footfalls against the landing echoed noisily against the walls of the building. This room he also had to himself, but it felt too big. Another empty bed rested against the opposite wall, a reminder that at some point, this space would be shared – it wasn’t really his. Not the way his room in Liam’s flat had been. He didn’t want to unpack his suitcase. It would be like admitting that all his worldly possessions belonged here now, where someone else could pick them up and touch them whenever they liked.

He missed Liam.

He missed Liam _so much_, he could feel hot, angry tears begin to well in his eyes every time he thought about it.

Curling his knees up to his chest, Killian took a steady breath and tried not to cry. They wanted him to go back to school on Monday, and he didn’t think he could make it through seventh grade if everyone thought he was the kind of kid that _cried_.

There was a sharp, abrupt knock at the door. The impatient rapping of knuckles against old wood. Killian hurriedly wiped his eyes, but the visitor didn’t wait for him to invite them in. He supposed he might have to get used to that.

In tumbled a girl with blonde hair and bright green eyes, who he knew took one look at his red-rimmed eyes and decided immediately to pretend she didn’t realise he was crying, by marching over to his window and looking out. Even this act of compassion made him burn with humiliation, piss _off_, he wanted to scream, he didn’t need their pitying looks. He didn’t want their kindness.

He just wanted Liam back.

The girl whirled around, and to his consternation she was smiling like she was in on the joke.

“Another banner year, right?”

Killian blinked. “What?”

“We’ve all got ghosts here.”

At the mention of ghosts Killian bristled, his mind flashing back to the headline on the newspaper in Archie’s office. The man had tried to hide it once he realised Killian was staring, but he had seen it. The social workers had told him Liam wasn’t well, and that was why he had done it. Killian knew he had been _perfectly_ well, and that the rest of the town thought he was completely mad and believed in ghosts and thought _that _was why he had decided to do it. Killian didn’t know either way. He just wished he hadn’t done it.

Killian directed the cold fury that headline had ignited in him at the intruder. “Are you making fun of me?”

“No,” she said shortly, and she looked offended at the idea. She looked familiar to Killian, and he had a feeling she was in his grade at school – he thought he might’ve seen Regina speaking to her a few times. Regina was the only sort-of friend he had made so far in Storybrooke. Sort-of, because he felt like they weren’t really friends, so much as aware of the fact that no one _else_ really wanted to be their friend, so they may as well stick together.

Killian didn’t care about Regina right now. He just wanted this girl to bugger off, and for him to get Liam back.

“I’m just saying, we’ve all got tragic backstories in here. No one will be all that bothered by yours by Tuesday.” 

This was not all that reassuring. The idea of Liam fading into memory made him feel even more wretched.

“What’s yours then?” he said, rather nastily. Mostly because he wanted her to go.

His tone didn’t phase her in the slightest. Instead she dropped on the opposite bed and ticked them off on her fingers one-by-one, as if they were a grocery list.

“Parents abandoned me by the side of the freeway when I was a baby, got carried to the nearest diner but the boy who brought me in vanished three months later, got adopted by a family until I was three but then they had kids of their own so they took me back.” She grinned wryly. “Thank God they still had the receipt, right?”

Killian eyed her warily; she spoke with the sort of nonchalance that suggested she would allow him to make fun of her the same way she was making fun of herself, but it was also completely transparent. It was obvious these experiences were painful for her, even to talk about as a joke. _And_ from the sounds of it she’d been living in a group home all of her life. Her whole life in big, cold rooms like this. The thought of it made Killian balk.

Despite himself, he felt a twinge of sympathy for her. For both her determined eyes and her bravado, too. He knew what that was like.

“What are you doing?”

“Talking,” the girl replied, giving him an odd look. “With you, I thought.”

“Why?” he demanded.

She shrugged. Killian didn’t remember if he’d seen her with any friends at school, all he could really remember were those few nebulous occasions she had spoken to Regina around him. He didn’t know her name, which definitely meant she wasn’t friends with the bigger, more boisterous groups in his class. That was okay, though. He didn’t particularly care for them either.

There was only one thing Liam had wanted out of him at school. It didn’t matter what grades he got, or whether he was good at sports or got involved in clubs. All Liam had ever made him commit to was being kind.

And the last thing he had said to Liam had venom enough to last for the rest of his life.

_I’m not finished_, his brother had barked, _don’t you walk away from me_.

If he had known it would be the last time – which, Killian had learnt, was what made _last times_ so devastating, you never really knew when they would be – he might not have slammed his bedroom door and refused to come out.

But who could say, now?

Thinking about Liam had the same affect it had for the last few weeks – it was like a punch to the gut. He could feel the frustration that had started building since they put him in that room begin to ebb away, feeling much calmer in a matter of moments.

Kindness, that was all Liam had asked for. That wasn’t so hard, was it?

“What’s your name?” he asked.

The change in tack cheered her up immensely and she grinned. “Emma.”

Emma, right. Yeah, he remembered now. Emma sat right at the back of class, near Leroy. Definitely one of the least desirable seats in the room.

“I’m Killian.”

Something easier settled between them, but it didn’t completely assuage the awkwardness. Killian felt tired. He stared at his suitcase, still zipped tightly shut, and he still wasn’t really ready to make it otherwise. He could sense Emma following his gaze.

“So,” she said brightly, to draw his attention away. “Do you wanna know where Archie hides the good snacks?”

After a moment’s hesitation Killian relented, and when she bounded over to the door he followed suit. 

Somehow, the prospect of going back to school on Monday seemed just a little less daunting. Maybe, he thought privately, he could ask if Emma wanted to sit by _him_ instead.

That would be nice.

-/-

** Present Day **

“That’s it,” Regina declared glumly. “That’s the last spell I have in here. We have _officially_ tried everything that might be relevant.”

The air was scented distinctly by a combination of cedar and sweetgrass, thick enough that Killian could feel it catching in the back of his throat. He flapped a hand in front of his face, suppressing a cough, and reached for the bottle of water he had brought with him. The haze had started to rise into the high ceiling, and Killian could spot it escaping through a gap in the brickwork where a roof slate had come loose near the top corner of the room. In his opinion, Regina had somewhat overdone it on the herbs; she had a tendency to rely on the more physical ingredients required, and actually ignored the fact that she did appear to have a natural instinct for the craft.

It was normal, he supposed, for somebody trying to dip their feet into something as intangible as the mystique, to try and ground themselves in more physical expressions of it – but she didn’t need to. Not that she would welcome his advice.

Besides, he was somewhat put out by her announcement. “Everything?”

“Short of getting down on my knees and begging, yes, everything.”

Killian snorted. “Now _that_ would be real magic.”

It had been a week already, and nothing had changed. Whenever Regina was inside it, Brooke House remained vacant, a gaping wound they kept determinedly placing themselves inside, suggesting nothing at all beyond brick and rotted wood and revealing even less. To every suggestion or provocation they made, the answer was only silence, and Killian could already see Regina losing hope. Either in her own abilities or in the idea that there was anything to _find_, he couldn’t be sure, but neither boded well for continuing their efforts.

Privately, Emma goaded him into bringing the dagger to the house. Every night she coaxed and cajoled, only to rage and curse once she realised he had not brought it – he daren’t, not yet. Unknowingly, Regina had helped him loosen the chokehold the spirit claimed the house held on it, and the final step was bringing her the dagger.

The way Killian saw it, the looser the hold, the nearer to the surface Emma must be.

But nothing they tried looked like it had made any impact. Every night, Emma was the same. Beguiling and capricious, aggressive and cold. And he was running out of time.

“There has to be something else,” he insisted, stepping across the room to where Regina had left her book of shadows and began flipping through the pages.

Irked, Regina stepped over to join him. “You’re right, why would I know _all_ the options in my own book?” she scowled, peering over his shoulder at whichever page happened to be open. “Why don’t we try that fertility spell and see what happens? I’ll get the pinecones, shall I?”

“Very funny.”

“I mean it, Killian. That’s it. There’s nothing else in here worth trying.” When Killian still looked chagrined, Regina’s expression softened. She laid a hand on his arm. “Do you really think I’d hold _anything_ back if it were for Emma?”

Resigning, Killian shook his head. He let out a long breath. “I just don’t like dead ends.”

“Neither do I. But have you considered _we_ are not the problem?”

The air felt too thick. The herbs had mixed with the musty smell of the old furniture and left a stench in the air like something unpleasant had congealed, or gone rotten. Deciding he needed to get something a little fresher in his lungs, and feeling oddly like he didn’t want this conversation to be observed by the walls of the house, Killian gestured for her to follow him out of the front door.

The afternoon was beginning to shift from a light coolness to something much colder, the forest a palette of dappled light through a deep, copper canvas. From the outside, Brooke House looked like it always did. Silent. Daring. Even without their history together, it begged to be explored.

“I’ve always wondered,” he said lowly, watching the house with a critical eye, “why Liam got involved in all of this in the first place.”

Without Liam, they would never have started down this path. The house, Belle Gold, the rotted pieces of orange string tied around the peeling skin of old birch trees. Killian reached for one nearby, picking absently at the knot, hardened through time and years of ill treatment by the elements.

“He was restoring the house,” Regina offered cautiously. “That’s what everyone says.”

He had certainly begun that way – you could tell that much just by looking at the work he had started on the far wall of the sitting room.

“But then why the rest of it? Why did he go to see Belle?”

“Maybe he found the same picture you did – he could’ve just wanted to know more about the house.”

The same questions and the same answers he had cycled through hundreds, thousands of times before, once again began the lap around his consciousness. Brooke House had taken so much already and he still understood so little about it. There was the dagger, for one. Emma’s name was on the dagger now, and that twisted, dark vision of her in the house was what remained, with _his_ Emma buried deep inside.

_Liam’s_ name had been on the dagger once, back before Emma had disappeared. _Could that mean –?_

No. Liam had been in the car. He’d been over this a hundred times; they said the evidence was incontrovertible. He’d been in the car that crashed into the river even if they never found his body.

Even if once, quietly, he had admitted to Emma that sometimes he imagined that meant he was still alive – somehow.

And say they were all wrong; if Liam wasn’t in the car and had _ever_ been like Emma was now, why didn’t he appear before?

But Liam’s name _had_ been on that dagger. And he was only just scratching the surface on what that might mean.

Killian scrubbed a hand over his chin thoughtfully.

“Gold – Belle’s husband – she said he went to Brooke House because he knew there was a power inside it, and he wanted it. To… possess it, I suppose. And that’s ultimately why he disappeared.” There was power inside it, certainly. And Killian didn’t doubt its ability to lure someone out of their homes, their lives, and seduce them with the promise of something more. “But Liam wasn’t _like_ that.”

But Liam, but Liam, but Liam.

Killian had never been able to reconcile the two motives in his mind. Gold wanted to control the spirit, but what had Liam wanted? He had done all the work for them with regard to summoning the demon; he had doodled the key elements to the ritual on an old piece of paper and had stuffed it in his toolbox. Killian could see the scribbled note as clearly as if it were still in his hand. _Salt circle. Curvy dagger. Five points_. Where had he gotten all this from? And what did he want from it?

And after all of that, the same question hammered against his skull with ever pressing urgency. It had been ten years since Liam Jones had driven his car over the edge of the ravine, but Killian could still barely restrain himself from hurling his head back and screaming until the heavens gave him an answer.

_Why? _

_Why did he do it?_

The gaunt face of Emma Swan from that first night swam before him, promising to give him every answer he had ever asked for, in exchange for her freedom. Maybe the only thing left was to give it to her, and damn the consequences. It might, for one sparing second, finally quiet all the tumult that had lived within him for far too long. Put the ghosts to rest.

Get Emma _back_.

“The darkness is seductive,” Regina said, but Killian had already forgotten what he had said before it. “Even for the kindest of souls.”

_So good of you to come and see me_.

“Come on,” he said, after a long moment, “let’s just go get our stuff.”

It was with great reluctance that they gathered their things back in the sitting room. Killian packed away each piece of his equipment with greater care than necessary, slowing down the process enormously. Regina seemed to mirror his sentiment as she started to needlessly take inventory of every herb or crystal she had brought with her, and which of them she was expecting to take back. She even decided to pack away the old scarlet scarf that had been there since the house had returned, and lifted the Ouija board from the ground. Killian knew why.

She was not planning to come back.

It felt right, somehow, to remove all evidence of their ever having been there, even as Killian’s heart began to feel heavy at the prospect. He already knew he would be returning tonight, and he would bring the dagger, finally. Only sights unseen could decide what happened now.

“Killian.”

It was quiet, but sharp. For a moment Killian didn’t register that Regina had spoken, until he looked over his shoulder and saw her staring, frozen, at the darkest wall, the one opposite the front window. The one Liam had abandoned his work on all that time ago, where he had pulled part of the wallpaper away and begun scrubbing at the dirt underneath.

It was not the curling, rotted sheet of wallpaper that Regina was looking at now, but the bared wood panelling that had rested underneath it. Killian knew this because there was something there now that had not been there before.

Written in bold, spiky letters on the wall in some kind of permanent marker, was the word _COME._

Killian’s heart began to pound. As he rose hesitantly to his feet, he could _feel_ more than hear the floorboards groan with protest underneath him.

“Don’t,” Regina got out, when he started towards the wall. “We – don’t know where that came from.”

Killian thought he had an idea.

As he approached, he could hear his own blood rushing in his ears, thumping, beating, _alive_, he had never felt so alive, so _sure_, so ready for whatever came next. _COME_, it beckoned, he came, and lifted a trembling finger to the wall to touch the letters. The end of the black pen lines faded into a patchy grey, as if they had been scribbled in a hurry. Killian traced the edge of the _E, _and realised the end of it extended beneath the wallpaper.

Digging his fingertips underneath it, Killian grimaced as the paper was moist to the touch, and then ripped at it as harshly as he could. A strip of it came clean away, and his eyes widened once he saw what was underneath it.

Another word. _LISTEN._

In a frenzy he dug again, harder this time, but pried with a little less force, hoping to bring more of the paper away in one go. The entire sheet pulled away, tearing in his fingers and baring the entire panel down to the ground.

Regina audibly sucked in a breath.

_COME_, it had said, _LISTEN_.

But that had only been half of the message.

In a daze, Killian suddenly remembered a detail of the night Emma had stolen his kiss that had slipped from his mind, something hastily stuffed into a bookcase upstairs and promptly forgotten about.

_COME LISTEN TO YOUR RECORDER._

-/-

** October 26th – 5 Years Ago **

They were far quieter this time around.

Their plans had to be put off until long after dark had fallen, for convenience’s sake and in order to avoid arousing suspicions from unaware parents – and because they all knew (but would not own up to) they probably had a greater chance of success by attempting the ritual at night. The moon was bright and full, and Brooke House was lit only by the constant flicker of torchlight and the clear, silver shadow it cast through the sitting room window.

Killian had cradled the dagger close to him while Emma had shouldered a bag full of his black marker, the candles and the salt he had stolen from under Archie’s nose again. Regina had brought her Ouija board, for no other reason than because it felt appropriate, and David had brought an Apollo chocolate bar.

“What?” he had said defensively, his mouth barely forming around the word as the wrapper crinkled in his grasp. “_I’m hungry_.” He had brought one for Mary Margaret too.

Emma had quickly decided that they all looked ridiculous. They were each dressed in as many layers as possible while still retaining motor function in order to combat the chill night air, highlights including Mary Margaret’s wide eyes being the only visible portion of her face as she had practically wrapped her entire upper body in a bright red scarf, while Emma struggled to keep her beanie from catching on errant low-hanging tree branches as they made their way there. She had always assumed _looking cool_ was something that came naturally when you were as burdened with solemn purpose as they were, but all that really meant was nobody said much and everyone was nervous.

It was perplexing how much spookier Brooke House looked at night.

Where before Emma had seen vivid green ivy climbing the walls from its foundations, now she saw black, curling fingers creeping upwards with unfaltering progress. The cracked windows and shattered roof slates now looked threatening instead of symbol of fatigue, as if something from inside the house and pushed and screamed until the glass exploded and the roof flew open. She thought about the attic, about the thumping of the wardrobe door that had led her to the dagger, now clutched carefully in Killian’s grip like a prayer. Maybe they had already let the danger out. Or maybe there was more to find.

Without much preamble Killian had leapt up the steps to the front door, but the rest of them followed more slowly behind. Emma felt she could understand the source of their reluctance, as even her heart hammered with trepidation while her fingers trembled with excitement.

_Magic was real and the world was different now. _

Emma had thought that while she and Killian set up the pentagram and the salt circle, that the other three might play again with the Ouija board as they had the first time they had been there. They did not, instead sitting in almost silence while David munched on chocolate and Mary Margaret and Regina stared anywhere but at she and Killian making preparations. The board sat on the ground, untouched, the planchette a few feet away. Mary Margaret took off her scarf.

She had just finished setting up the last candle when Killian called them over, softly, and wordlessly they took their places at each point of the pentagram. The air felt damp like the forest outside, and tingled with something unsaid between them. Emma felt charged and ready to snap.

Killian cleared his throat. “Listen, whatever happens, whatever we find… I’m so grateful, to all of you.”

“We’re with you,” David said, and they all murmured their agreement. Emma took his hand.

Killian squeezed it once, tightly, and in the tremor of his fingers she could feel how nervous he was. Then he released her and reached for the matches, making his way around the circle and lighting each of the five candles, and they all switched off their torches as they did so. Soon, the only light came from the moon, and the flicker of candlelight in front of him.

Then, finally, he placed the dagger in its centre.

Emma heard something _hiss_, like the sudden suction of air after opening a can of soda. It was so brief that she almost thought she hadn’t heard it, but she knew she must have. Nobody else seemed to, though, so she pressed her lips together and chose not to mention it. The blade glittered in the warm orange glow of candlelight. Killian took his place by her, folding his legs beneath him. The candle left half of his face bathed in shadow, but Emma thought she could see his mouth moving, his eyes flickering closed for a moment. For a moment she imagined he might be praying, and resisted the urge to dismiss that notion as soon as it came to her. He hadn’t believed in any sort of deity for as long as she had known him, but nobody laughed at God when they were staring at the evidence that the world was already stranger than they had dreamt it.

Like before, they reached for the hands of those either side of them, completing the circle they had made on the first night. Except this time it wasn’t about them; it wasn’t about David and Mary Margaret, shyly but enthusiastically clutching at each other, it wasn’t about Regina’s desire to be heard or the impossible sounds that had come to Emma from the wardrobe upstairs. They knew what it was about, and they knew who. It seemed only natural that Killian would speak.

“Show yourself,” he said.

He announced this with confidence, as if he had already decided who it was they were speaking to. As if he knew them already. As if he had just been waiting for them to know him.

It began in much the same way it had before, except this time Emma knew what to expect.

She shut her eyes tightly, and felt the noises from outside the circle begin to dissipate; the rustle of the trees, the old creeks and groans they had come to expect from the ancient framework of Brooke House. The air had gone still, as if it, too, was holding its breath and waiting, and although she _knew_ the others weren’t far from her, she could no longer sense their being close in the same way – it were as if they had all been thrust underwater, and the only true sensation was Killian’s hand in her right, and David’s hand in her left.

The temperature had begun to drop, as if by welcoming some spectral presence it had to absorb everything that made the room conducive to life, but a different kind of warmth had begun to vibrate from somewhere near her collarbone. It tugged at her, touched her, wanted her to lean forward.

_Yes_, it purred, _come_.

A low buzzing began to circle around them, and with it Emma began to feel the air moving again, picking up into a mild gust brushing past them and Mary Margaret let out a squeak of alarm.

“Don’t let go,” someone said. She thought it might have been Regina.

The breeze began to grow into a flurry, and Emma felt her beanie being whipped off her head and carried into some other dark part of the room. Orange light swam behind her eyelids as the flames from the candles darted about violently, but they did not go out as she would have expected them to. On they burned, and the buzz rose into a roar until it drowned out every other sound, and the buzz was now a whisper except it had always been a whisper, and she had no idea how she could have ever thought of it as otherwise. A thousand voices whirled about them in chorus, speaking too quickly or too loudly for Emily to distinguish any of the words, but when she heard the others gasp in fright her eyes flew open, and she couldn’t stop the noise of alarm she made once she saw what the others had been looking at.

The dagger was now floating above them, suspended in mid-air.

Even though she knew she was seeing it, and she knew exactly what she was seeing, Emma found it difficult to reconcile it with everything she knew to be real and true.

_The world was different now._

“Why – why is it doing that?” David had to yell to be heard over the roar around them.

“Don’t break the circle!” Killian hollered back.

The air began to crackle, and Emma was again caught by the sensation that a storm was about to break out, and half expected to feel the patter or rain on the back of her neck. The wind was whipping her coat and her hair in all directions, but she tried to keep her focus on the dagger – which was the moment she realised it was vibrating, moving in such infinitesimal increments and with such speed that it was impossible to focus on its outline, and it had become a muddled blur of bruised grey and black.

Killian’s hand tightened on hers.

And that was when lightning struck.

Mary Margaret screamed. David let go of Emma’s hand to shield his face from the sudden blast, but it was unlike any kind of lightning Emma had ever seen before. It was aggressively black, and once it struck the dagger it stayed attached, like a sharp, pulsing vein, whirling violently in the squall. Then another struck. And again. And again. With more clashes so loud that her ears began to burn with heat, with pain, darkness latched itself onto the dagger hovering above them. She felt Killian’s touch like an anchor, keeping her tethered to the ground, and David’s loss was like a gaping hole in her side, a vacuum where something strong and indomitable should have been.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She thought her face might already be wet, where tears had rolled down and struck her dumb and more than anything she wanted Killian to look at her, but his awestruck expression remained focus on the obsidian zephyr that had engulfed the dagger, swirling dangerously like a storm they were only just out of reach of.

It was too late, now, to put it back in the box.

_They should never have done this. _

Emma knew it like she knew the shape of her own heart, like she knew the jagged edges of Killian’s soul, like the sharp blade of her fishing knife, like David’s warm, warm embrace.

In Brooke House they had touched something evil, and flung its cage wide open.

Emma gasped, which was how she knew she was struggling for air.

She heard someone call her name, but she had no way of knowing who it might be. She couldn’t see through the vortex to Mary Margaret and Regina, David was cowering away and Killian, and Killian, and Killian.

Killian watched, his mouth open in a silent cry.

_Liam_, he said – his heart _shouted_ it – _Liam, Liam, Liam_.

Emma tore her gaze back into darkness.

Which was when she realised someone was inside it.

The realisation struck her with the force of an icy wave. Struggling inside the hurricane there was a man, his arms held up to shield his face, his scream noiseless amongst the thousands of other voices the storm had brought with it, and it was clear he was trapped. Emma couldn’t see his expression but knew immediately that he must be in pain from his posture.

She jerked forwards – and suddenly she was _in_ herself, in fact, she felt so aware of her arms and her hands and the shape of her own eyes that she hadn’t realised she had been away from them until that very moment. It felt like the way she had stumbled in front of Brooke House the night she found the dagger. She was dazed and released and confused but she could _breathe_, and with a jolt she remembered the man imprisoned inside the vortex.

Her head darted from side to side, but David didn’t look like he had seen him, he was reaching for Mary Margaret – Killian couldn’t have either, or he would not be so frozen and still, she was sure, she was the only one – she was the only one –

She was the only one who could –

“_There’s – there’s someone in there!_”

Killian had heard her, and immediately jerked his head to look at her. His mouth formed around Liam’s name, but Emma couldn’t hear it over the roaring in her ears. Killian’s eyes darted back to the dagger, unseeing, and he looked at Emma again, helpless. He couldn’t see the man.

Emma could see him.

_She was the only one who could –_

Emma let go of Killian’s hand.

His cry of alarm was the only thing she heard before she stood, stumbling against the force of the wind all around her.

“_EMMA!_”

The man saw her. His mouth opened in a silent scream.

_She had to help him._

Emma hurled herself into the storm.

She was nothing but air. She was stirring, shattering, waiting, hoping, spinning, crying out, she was screaming, oh God she was screaming, thrusting, grasping, wanting, hurting, oh it hurt, it hurt, it burned like the day she had first been born, like the day she had made herself all over again. She pushed and she pushed and her arms were aching and there was blood, there was so much blood, but she felt something solid in front of her and her fist closed around it.

_The dagger_.

It was white hot to touch but she couldn’t let go, her hand was locked. It was all over her arms. Her wrists erupted in angry, crimson welts and she screamed, and she could see Regina, wide-eyed and fearful. She turned, she turned, she turned. She could see Mary Margaret. She turned, she turned, she turned. There was David, standing now, shouting, she couldn’t hear what he was shouting, his legs were braced, he was readying himself for a fight.

_Where was the man?_

_Was he okay?_

Unseen hands grasped at her skull, tugged and everything was a blur of colour except everything was white, and she gasped, and it hurt, and she couldn’t release the dagger, and the voice was telling her to let go, to let go, to let go.

_Come_, it hissed, _listen –_

She was being unmade.

And then she saw Killian.

She saw Killian and her heart hurt. She wanted and she wanted and she wanted and then she wanted more, she wanted everything from him, she wanted everything_ for_ him, he was yelling but she couldn’t hear him, and she wanted nothing more than to hear his voice and beckon him inside, yes, yes, every voice was screaming yes, bring him in, bring him in, bring him in –

_No_.

No one else.

Not one more person.

She wrenched her focus back onto Killian, she could see him ready to pounce, to throw himself into the hurricane and follow her, always to follow her, to the end of the world or time and –

And she loved him.

The darkness would not claim one more person. Not a _single_ person, for as long as she was alive.

_And she was alive_.

She opened her mouth.

“_Killian – Killian, don’t –!” _

Her cry made him hesitate – and it was enough to stop him in his tracks.

It was enough, he was safe, and she let go.

-/-

As suddenly as the storm had struck, it was gone.

Gone was the wind, the noise, the charged black lightning, and the stench of something rotted, something old, something wanting. The dagger clattered down onto the ground.

David was the first to recover, breathing heavily, eyes wild.

“Where’s Emma? Where – where did she go?”

Over and over, Emma’s final cry rang like crystal in Killian’s ears.

_Killian – Killian, don’t –!_

It had all happened so fast.

He could still feel her hand slipping free from his grasp.

He’d been ready to jump in after her, if he’d been just a second quicker, if he hadn’t _hesitated_ – why? _Why_ did he hesitate?

_Killian – Killian, don’t –!_

Because he’d seen her eyes, black as charcoal, her wrists stained crimson. He didn’t think he would ever forget it; especially since it had made him falter. Since it had possibly cost them everything.

Killian tumbled forwards, reaching blindly for the dagger. He didn’t want to look at it, but he was sure he knew what he would find. The others were slowly coming back to their senses, recovering from the suddenness of something that had been very much _there_, suddenly _not_ being there, and realising along with David that Emma had vanished. That Emma had let go of his hand. That Emma had screamed at him not to follow and he had obeyed.

In the second where everything had mattered most, he had been afraid, and he had obeyed.

“Bring her back.” It was David again, but Killian could scarcely even hear him. He felt like he was speaking to him through fog. “You bring her back right now, Jones, or I swear –!”

Killian never found out what he would swear to. His attention was fixed on the dagger, and he heard the breath escape the others once they realised what it was he was looking at.

The name engraved across the blade had changed. _Liam Jones_ had gone.

_He could still feel her hand slipping free from his grasp_.

The dagger, glittering in the dark, now read _Emma Swan. _

In his bones, he already knew the devastating truth, even as his soul railed against it.

_Killian – Killian, don’t –!_

Emma was gone.


	6. 6 - when the first man awoke in the night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is the conclusion! I will ramble a little more at the end, but for now, please accept once again my flails over @HollyeLeigh (@hollyethecurious on tumblr) and this beautiful aesthetic. It made the fic, and I'm so happy to be able to put the final part out into the world. Enjoy!

** Present Day **

There was a pervading sense of _strangeness _to seeing them all in the same room again.

It was like listening to your favourite song for the first time in years, but the lyrics were now backwards. Instead of humming along in that easy, thoughtless way, it felt jarring to the ears and forced you to really consider what exactly you were hearing, line by line, word by word.

Killian couldn’t stop thinking about every word he offered up into their shared space now; everything felt permanent, nothing could be taken back. What they said in _this_ moment would mark how every moment after it would come to be. He was sure of it, and he was sure the other three felt the same, which was why very little had been said since Mary Margaret had warily invited he, Regina and David over the threshold and into her loft.

Regina had taken a position nearest the door, arms folded, expression neutral, leaning steadily against the wall. She looked like someone trying desperately to imitate the pose of one unaffected, but the tension in the set of her shoulders gave her away. Killian had perched on the stairs that led up to the upper floor, and David stood in the centre of the room shifting his weight from foot to foot and glaring sadly around him, as if he had no idea where he fit into this room anymore and imagined any of her items of furniture might have been the one to oust him. Mary Margaret sat at the side of her dining table that allowed her to face all three of them at once, hands clasped tightly together over the tabletop.

Mary Margaret had offered them tea and they had all declined.

It was the distance, Killian decided, that was most difficult to take in. It was the closest they had been to each other in five years, but the space between them had never felt wider.

The tape recorder was clutched tightly in Killian’s right hand. It was a little slick with sweat from his palm, but he refused to let it go.

“Is this about Emma?” Mary Margaret asked, and while she asked politely, the edge in her voice was unmistakable. She did not want her house of cards to come down around her. When they didn’t immediately reply she offered with a wry eyebrow raise: “It’s not likely to be about anything else, is it?”

“It is,” Killian said, seeing no point in drawing it out. “It’s about the house.” He and David exchanged a look. “It’s back.”

Something ticked in Mary Margaret’s jaw. “I don’t know how to make this any clearer – I _don’t _want to know.”

In that moment, Killian couldn’t see anything but Emma in her – except he had always had an instinct for how to scale Emma’s walls, but with Mary Margaret he floundered.

Fortunately, there was someone else in the room who knew how far better than he.

“Hey,” David started, gently, in that tone so earnest and warm that none of them had ever really been able to ignore. “You know who we are, you know what this must be. Just look at us.” No matter what else had happened, there they all were. “This isn’t something from nothing – we wouldn’t do that to you.” He gave her a sad sort of smile. “_I_ wouldn’t do that to you.”

Mary Margaret stared back up at him, and not for a second did Killian believe their story was as over as they had both claimed it was. “What is it, then?” she asked.

“It’s this.” Killian stood up, opening his palm to reveal the tape recorder inside. It was sturdy and blocky, resembling a clunky child’s toy more than the instrument that had brought them together that night. He laid it on the table, and before she could ask he cut her off. “I recorded this five nights ago, in Brooke House.”

The tape immediately began to crackle and scratch, and Killian fast-forwarded just long enough until it started. It whirred, and it _tck-tck-tck-_ed, and eventually there was a voice.

‘_Emma?’ _

His voice. Cutting through the static. There were a few thumps. A rustle as he’d stuffed the recorder in his pocket, some creaks as he climbed the stairs within Brooke House. Through the recording, Killian could relive the second night he had gone to the house since coming back to Storybrooke, the same way both Regina and David already had.

‘_Emma?’_

There was a crash, and the unmistakable tear of book bindings. Except, where Killian had heard Emma’s voice that night, the tape recorder had picked up nothing. Instead it sounded as if Killian had stood in silence, waiting.

_‘Why didn’t you show yourself to Regina?’_

Another _thud_, as another book was hurled against the wall. Otherwise, quiet.

_‘Come here,’ _the Killian on the tape said, ‘_let me look at you.’_

Mary Margaret was frowning, and lifted her bemused gaze up first to Killian, and then the others. “What is this?”

“Just wait,” Regina answered quietly from her place by the door.

The Killian on the tape let out a long breath. _‘I’m so sorry._’ A pause. ’_All of it.’_

Killian bristled at the memory, felt the cold touch of her lips like a steel edge. You couldn’t tell from the recording what had happened, and Killian had not been quick to fill the others in on his actions during that particular interval. But even as the seconds passed, his pulse began to race – he had listened to this recording a hundred times already, listened to Emma’s spectral presence like a non-entity, had initially resigned himself to having caught nothing of measurable value to show she was there at all.

Except right _then_ –

‘_Killian?_’

Emma’s voice was unmistakable.

Mary Margaret’s reaction was instant, and visceral. She almost bolted out of her chair. In fact, she looked so suddenly pale and faintly ill that Killian nearly offered to fetch her something to throw up in. What were you supposed to do when you heard the voice of your long dead friend, five years after the fact of their dying?

But it was just that one word – then it was Killian promising to help her, and then there was nothing at all.

“There’s more,” he said grimly, but he had a feeling Mary Margaret wouldn’t have been able to form words just yet anyway. Killian clicked a finger on the fast forward.

He had completely forgotten about that recorder after Emma had kissed him – it had sat on those bookshelves for five days, running continuously in the study on the landing. He was fortunate it was such an old, robust thing. Even without attention it had continued diligently fulfilling his purpose, and his only regret was that it had run out of tape after a day and a half.

But in that time, it had caught enough.

Having wound the tape to this point so many times, Killian stopped it once more and let the noises trickle out.

A rustle of fabric, something scratching on old floors. A faint, but tangible sigh.

‘_Killian?’_

Emma, again. Killian shut his eyes. He let the sound wash over him.

‘_Killian?’_

There was nothing for a minute or so here, but Killian left it running. They all needed time to process it, and together they listened to the soft sounds of Brooke House murmuring quietly. Ancient wood groaned, the stairs told the bannister that someone was coming, the wind pushed doors open and closed them. But eventually, reverently, they heard her speak again.

‘_Yesterday, I dreamed…’ _

She hissed out a breath. Her voice was quiet, and terribly sad. Killian’s heart seized to hear it, because he knew it was _his_ Emma. This voice wasn’t rich with delighted, dark secrets. It was hollow and resigned and a breath of condensation across frosted glass.

‘_I don’t know where I am. I thought I heard your voice.’_

Something fluttered, possibly the pages of a book. Then there was only silence.

Killian knew this quiet stretched the tape for a few hours, so again he tapped his finger to fast forward, until they could hear her speak again.

‘_It’s – it’s the car. I don’t want to see it anymore. Is David there?’_

David dropped heavily down into a seat at the dining table. The Emma on tape continued, oblivious.

‘_I thought I heard your voice. We have to finish it. It’s…’_ Something scratched loudly, and the four in the kitchen winced at the sudden volume of the sound. ‘_Killian? Is that you? I’m so cold. I –’ _

The recorder clicked, sputtered and stopped. It had reached the end of the tape. 

Then they waited.

It had been enough to convince David; it had been more than enough for Regina to let go of her scepticism about whether Emma needed rescuing. For Killian, it had lit a fire under him. Not only was Emma, _their_ Emma, trapped in Brooke House somehow, but she was cognizant. He had seen it. In those breathless few seconds after their lips had touched, his Emma had bled through like a blot of ink stretching across paper, and she had asked after him.

Now he intended to answer.

But they couldn’t do it without Mary Margaret, not if they needed what he thought they did – three pairs of eyes turned to look at her.

Killian was unsurprised to notice she was crying. Her shoulders shook, and she did not resist David when his hand came over to rest atop hers. In fact, she curled open her palm and allowed him to thread their fingers together as she let out a tremulous breath, her eyes misty and fighting for clarity.

“Please tell me this isn’t real.” She sounded as miserable as she looked.

“It’s real,” Regina answered.

“Our girl is in there,” David urged. “We have to get her out.”

With her free hand, Mary Margaret furiously wiped her face with the back of it. When she spoke, her voice cracked. “How?”

Killian brushed a finger across the edge of the tape recorder, and for a wild moment considered rewinding it and letting it play again just so he could hear her voice.

“The ritual. The same one we started five years ago.”

It had always bothered Killian, had niggled in the back of his mind for _years_. If the sole purpose of that ritual had been summoning a malevolent spirit in order to control its power, then why had Liam Jones allowed himself to become embroiled in it? Liam was honesty, integrity, and fierce loyalty. It didn’t add up.

“It was never about bringing something evil out – I should have recognised the signs the moment I came back, but I was too busy thinking about Brooke House _now_ to worry about _then_.” Turning abruptly to the coffee table, Killian plucked a pen and ripped a page from a notebook that had been lying there and brought it back to the dining table. On it, he carefully sketched the five-pointed star he had drawn into the floorboards at Brooke House. “History lesson. One of the earliest known uses of the pentagram is actually as a Christian symbol – its points are supposed to represent the five wounds of Christ.

“Then, as time goes on, you start to see a rise in occult practices, and they pretty much liberally borrow as much symbolism as possible from anywhere they can. Particularly the pentagram – which, if you turn around –” Killian swivelled the image so the tip of the star was pointing down, and the two points jutted out upwards. “—Has been known to represent the two horns of Satan, here. The rejection of heaven and all things spiritual. That’s what I thought I was looking at when I saw it needed to be in the ritual.” He’d spent a few days absorbed in old library books, researching what Liam had written down and left in his toolbox.

He had allowed himself to be influenced by Belle Gold, by all the talk of evil, and as a result had only bothered with one interpretation of the symbol – which was reductive, and a potentially fatal error.

“But way, way before all of that, you have its uses in Taoism, with Pythagoras and the Greeks, in early iterations of paganism. Some perceive it as a representation of the elements, but most agree that it’s about balance. It’s perfection in mathematics, the human body, words; it makes its uses in religious ritual and magic basically inevitable. But by the time the pagan revival begins – well, mostly a re-invention or re-construction of older practices – it’s become so strongly associated with malevolence and Satanism that it’s a little difficult to adopt as a symbol of faith. So, what do you do?”

Killian grinned.

“You turn it the right way up and draw a big fat circle around it.”

He rotated the paper again, so the single point was facing upwards and drew a circle around its points, connecting each one.

“It’s a _different_ symbol. It’s what most modern wicca practices call a pentacle, it’s supposed to represent a physical object used in ceremonial evocation – the act of calling upon a spirit – for _protection_. It’s a talisman. Liam wanted the circle made from salt, which is a common ingredient in purification spells. There are candles at each point to give energy, but –”

“You should have left one unlit,” Regina cut across him, eyes widening once she’d put the pieces together.

“Exactly.”

David and Mary Margaret, for their part, looked entirely nonplussed by the turn of the conversation. Killian winced internally – perhaps he’d spilt out the word _magic_ a few too many times for them.

David blinked. “What – what are you talking about?”

“One candle should have been unlit to let energy _out_,” Killian explained. “This isn’t a ritual for summoning or capturing a demon. It’s a ritual for banishing one.”

Mary Margaret dropped her head in her hands.

“Years. _Years_ of therapy. All undone in a single evening.”

“Did you hear her?” Killian pressed, tapping the tape recorder emphatically. “Did you hear her calling out for us? She said it herself. We need to _finish_ this. There’s no moving past it until we do.”

“I can’t. I just – I can’t.”

Killian could feel frustration mounting, but David laid a hand on his arm before he could burst out something furious and likely detrimental to their cause. They could attempt the ritual without Mary Margaret, but without a person sat at every point of the pentacle the spell would be weaker. It had to be her – there was no one else.

“Mary Margaret,” David began. He shifted his chair a little closer. “Mary Margaret.”

Miserably, she raised her head, hands clasped on the back of her neck.

“I think you need a little of something that you used to give all of us,” he smiled. “Hope.”

Her eyes welled with fresh tears, and Mary Margaret shook her head. “Hope – _hurts_.”

“Only when we give it up.” To Killian’s surprise, it was Regina who had spoken, pushing away from the wall to stand at Mary Margaret’s shoulder. “I thought I could bury this beneath the way the world had opened up. That it was the price for new eyes.” She locked eyes with Killian, offered him a nod of understanding. “I was wrong. And… I’m sorry. We should have supported each other, stayed together.”

“Regina’s right,” Killian continued. “And this is on me, too. I should have been here. I shouldn’t have missed… everything I missed.”

He had missed the service for Emma, he had missed old Henry Mills’ passing, he had missed David and Mary Margaret going their separate ways, he had missed the coda of their friendship with Regina, he had missed Archie leaving town, he had missed the library closing its doors for the last time, he had missed, he had missed, he had missed.

Killian had thought leaving Storybrooke was the best decision he had ever made; that without Emma, all that was left was walking in the dust.

Admitting that he had spent five years _missing_ Storybrooke was like releasing a breath he hadn’t realised he had been holding. 

“Emma needs us,” David urged, taking one of Mary Margaret’s hands in his own. “One last time. All of us – together.”

They were all pieces of the same, scattered glass. Some edges sharp, some smooth. All Killian knew was the completed image was soft and golden, and he ached for it so harshly and so tenderly that he couldn’t bear it if the night ended any other way.

Mary Margaret took a steadying breath.

Her fingers clasped around David’s.

“Hope,” she said, and it settled it.

They were doing this.

-/-

The sky above Main Street was a deep, midnight blue, the winking light of stars only clearly visible if you fixed your gaze on it for longer than a few seconds. All appeared still, other than the stirring of crisp and deadened leaves in an unhurried brush down the road, and long shadows cast by the bronze streetlights were black in the way the sky should have been.

In the corner of Killian’s eye, everything seemed to shift. Every few metres it felt like something flashed at the edge of his vision, just out of sight, daring him to turn and look, trying to pull them from their singular focus of getting to the edge of town as quickly as possible. He was sure it was Brooke House. The dagger felt cool against his chest from the inside of his jacket. How did Emma put it? Testing the boundaries? Stretching her limits? A spectre at the edge of Main Street, a shadow at the end of David’s bed.

He could feel her all around them watching, waiting, trying to deter them from coming any closer. Perhaps she knew of their intent. Streetlights flickered overhead, and the groan of steel scarring tarmac could be heard distantly.

Killian felt so _exposed_. The others had huddled in close, walking swiftly as a unit – maybe they could feel it too.

He was so involved in wondering after the otherworldly, that the reality of a car pulling up beside them didn’t even register until the occupant was already climbing out. The door slammed definitively, purposefully, and it drew them to a halt. Once Killian had identified who now stood there in the gloom, features lit by the fading amber light of the street, he let out a string of murmured expletives.

“I knew it was only a matter of time before the whole gang was back together again,” Sheriff Graham Humbert growled, his voice as melodic and dangerous as it had been when Killian was just seventeen, frightened, and exhausted beyond belief on the night that had started it all.

Killian fought to keep his voice level. “It’s been a long time, Humbert.”

“Long enough that you’re ready to finally give me the truth?”

“Graham,” Regina began quietly, and it was the way her tongue curled around _Graham_, it was the intimacy of it, the sheer fact that they were on a first name basis that sent Killian’s mind into a tailspin, cataloguing a few more ways the town had continued to tick without him.

They were all adults now, weren’t they? So why not? Why not _Graham_?

_Because he didn’t like it_.

“Don’t,” Humbert said shortly. “So where is it you’re off too? The ravine, maybe?”

He looked older than when Killian had seen him last. He had only just been elected the month before Emma had disappeared, gruff but bright-faced and enthusiastic about his future turning over small town misdemeanours. Then he had been thrown into a missing-persons-assumed-murder case, and nothing about Storybrooke had felt small anymore. Had Emma’s disappearance given him those lines, pulled taut at the corner of his eyes? Could the unhappy curve to his mouth, the adamant line of his jaw, be because of Emma, too?

He had only wanted to find Emma, it was all any of them had wanted. On any of the countless nights Killian had lain awake, unable to dream of anything but the night that Emma had vanished, could Graham Humbert possibly have been doing the same?

Not to mention his instincts were correct. The four of them _did_ know something more about it than what they had told him. It must have churned him up inside to know that, and not be able to do a single thing about it.

“We’re going for a drink,” Mary Margaret offered, and she surprised Killian with the smoothness of the lie. “Just old friends catching up.”

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” Humbert snapped. His badge glittered in the dim light. “You were up to something then, and you’re up to something now.” He folded his arms. “I’d like to invite _all_ of you to come down to the station and have a chat, seeing as you’ve got the time.”

At the end of the street, a bulb blew in a shower of orange sparks. Glass rained musically down onto the sidewalk. Killian thought he saw the flutter of white fabric dart around the corner.

_Watching, waiting, daring_.

“We don’t have time for this,” Regina muttered. “Step aside, Graham.”

“Fine, go. I’ve got no problem with it. The way you all look tonight,” Humbert stared at each of them in turn, scathingly, “I have a feeling you’ll lead me straight to her.”

He had _only_ ever wanted to find Emma. That, Killian reminded himself, they had in common.

Movement flickered at the edge of his vision, and for a moment Killian was certain once he turned his head he’d see another spectre of Emma, dirty white and terrible, but it was David, David had surged forward and his fist was swinging and Killian heard the _crack_ of Humbert’s head hitting the sidewalk before his eyes had even processed that he was witnessing his crumpled form falling backwards. Out cold.

David was hissing with pain, shaking out his hand and wincing.

The other three were blinking, astonished.

“Sorry,” he offered to Humbert’s motionless form. Then, turning to the others and noticing their expressions, he suddenly grew defensive. “We’re in a hurry, aren’t we?”

Inside a convenience store, a radio burst to life. The scattered notes of _Only You_ could be heard scratching across the quiet street.

Killian narrowed his eyes. Yes, they were.

The four of them stepped carefully around Humbert, and continued their brisk journey into the night.

Given their intent, Killian had half expected for Brooke House to be gone by the time they got there, like when they had returned on the first night to look for Emma. After the ritual they had scattered into the trees, tearing off in different directions to try and find where she might have gone, voices hoarse with their continued calls out for her. By the time they had returned to the site of the house to regroup, faithfully following the trail of Killian’s orange string, it had gone. Taking Regina’s Ouija board, Mary Margaret’s scarf, David’s Apollo chocolate bar wrapper and _Emma_ with it. A piece of all of them lost to the maw – some bigger than others. It had feasted on what it could and disappeared into the night.

Perhaps, Killian thought, as he stared at its broad foundations, the beckoning creek of its front door, the gasping cavern of its insides, it looked at them all like an unfinished meal.

It _waited_, it _watched_, and it _dared_ them closer to finish them for good.

Killian’s hand tightened on the hilt of the dagger.

_Emma needed them_. And she had waited long enough.

As one, he and Regina stormed up the steps and headed inside. Behind him, he could hear Mary Margaret whimper, the urgent, hushed tones from David pushing her forward, but he paid them no mind. They each had a job to do here – this was his. Regina immediately pulled out a black marker and began tracing the shape of the pentacle on the floor, while Killian rummaged in the rucksack they had brought for the salt. He started sprinkling it in a perfect circle around the edges, and it wasn’t long before David had coerced Mary Margaret through into the sitting room. She had her palms over her eyes, as if by not looking at the aged walls of the house she might not have to acknowledge she was stood there.

Something _crashed_ upstairs. David and Mary Margaret jerked towards the sound, the latter dropping her hands. Killian and Regina exchanged grim looks.

“It knows,” she said.

“Get the candles.”

There were other loud bangs of protest, like the sudden opening and slamming of doors, and at every noise it brought the four of them closer together, until Killian could feel Mary Margaret’s small hand clutching tightly to his upper arm. He spared her the briefest of glances – in the gloom she looked completely pale, but her features were set into something determined. The house could screech and moan, but she would not be so easily spooked anymore.

_This_ was the girl he remembered. The one who could be _both_; afraid, and brave.

Killian fumbled with the matches, but not a single one would light. Killian stuck his finger into the packet and found, bafflingly, that the tip of every match was damp, even though they had been tucked away in his pocket. With irritation Killian thought of the damp wall and the wallpaper, and he thought he could hear laughter. It might have been the wind whistling past broken glass, but it was something.

“Here,” David said. He’d pulled a lighter from his pocket.

At four of the five points they set a lit candle, and at the fifth they set a final one – unlit, for the release of energy they had intended. Quickly they took their places behind a flickering flame, leaving the gap between Killian and David where Emma had sat all those years ago.

Killian’s pulse raced, his heart felt jagged and stuttered; hope, that treacherous notion, couldn’t help but imagine that at the end of all this, she might once again be sitting there.

“Ah,” came an icy voice from over his shoulder. Killian shut his eyes, knowing who it was at once. “You _finally_ brought my dagger.”

“Ignore her,” Killian said firmly, refusing to turn around, but the others weren’t paying attention to him. Their stares, slack-jawed and stupefied, were fixed on the phantom that had just entered the room.

David’s voice was hoarse. “Emma?”

“_David_,” Killian barked. “Take Mary Margaret’s hand.”

“David,” Emma’s voice was honeysuckle and thick. “David, it’s me. Come on, come away from there. It’s time to go, don’t you think?”

Mary Margaret snatched his hand from where it had been hovering near her, and in a daze, David turned his head back towards her.

“Look at me,” she said, fiercely. “My eyes. Only.” David looked torn. “That is _not_ our girl.”

“David,” Emma sang. His shoulders tense, but he did not turn to look at her again. Instantly, Emma’s tone turned nasty. “_Get out_.”

Killian didn’t care for ceremony anymore; he didn’t care for the weight of it all, for the ritual, for the sense of preserving the past – he felt like he had spent his entire adult life consecrating devastation. Regina’s hand was tight in his, their incomplete circle ready and waiting. The candle flames danced backwards and forwards, and Killian used his spare hand to pull the dagger from his coat pocket.

There was a loud _hiss_ from behind him, like the hum of a cooped-up predator, and something ice cold and hard swung in front of him and gripped his throat.

Killian gasped.

Mary Margaret screamed.

He felt the air being squeezed from his windpipe, the dig of Emma’s nails into his skin so harsh he was sure they must’ve drawn blood –

With effort, Killian raised his hand –

And flung the dagger into the centre of the circle.

The effect was instantaneous. Emma released him immediately and wailed, something loud and drastic and terrible, as the air began to crackle. There was no slow build up this time, a steady gathering of wits as the room began to take in its breath, there was just the rumble of distant thunder, the storm they made to summon forming as suddenly as a tornado. The wind howled through the cracked windows; one of them shattered under the force of it and carried shards of glass towards them, hurtling around them with great speed.

Through the gap between Killian and David, Emma had stumbled backwards into the middle of the circle, and her eyes were black and furious. Right in front of them, she began to curl in on herself but it was impossible, her back had bent at a right angle and the contortions were too much, too _strange_, that his brain tried to tell Killian that it wasn’t happening at all. The wind whipped away her crown of flowers until it disintegrated, and her mouth gaped open in a silent scream, wide, wider, a yawning arc of darkness.

Something sharp dug into Killian’s cheek – _glass_, he thought, helplessly – and he reached up his free hand to try and shield himself. Mary Margaret and Regina had their eyes tightly shut, expressions scrunched up with pain and Regina’s lips were moving, but Killian couldn’t hear anything over the roar in his ears.

That was when the lightning struck.

In unison, arcs of obsidian light latched onto both the centre of Emma’s chest and the dagger, tying the two together like an ugly, pulsing artery. Again it flashed, this time onto her back, and again, her left hand, again, her right, until Emma was entirely obscured from view by the opaque jet of the zephyr.

This was where they had lost Emma before – she had thrown herself into the centre of the storm.

Killian tensed, _maybe_ – _maybe_ –

Regina’s hand tightened on his, as if sensing the direction of his thoughts.

_Not a chance_, it said, and gripped even harder.

Instead he yelled out into the darkness.

“_Emma!_”

The only response was rage – the door to the sitting room swung off its hinges, dropping heavily onto the floor. The wallpaper was ripped to shreds. A hole the size of a fist splintered into the floorboards behind him. Even so, on hearing him, the others took up the call – screaming for Emma to come through, to break free, to take her place in their circle and complete them.

“_I know you’re in there!_” Killian hollered, and his throat felt hoarse but he _needed_ to make himself heard. “_Emma, you can do it!_”

And then – and then – he _saw_ her.

Not the twisted, luminous Emma that the house had been showing him, but _Emma_, their Emma, staring out from the centre of the tornado. Through jets of black lighting he could see her, eyes wide, palms facing upward as if waiting for the rain to come, her mouth open in a cry that he couldn’t hear.

He couldn’t hear it, but he could see it. When she locked eyes with him her mouth formed the same words that had haunted him from the minute they’d first been ripped from her.

_Killian –_ _Killian, don’t –!_

Not this time.

Killian wrenched his hand free.

“_No!_” Regina cried.

_If you have to have someone_, he thought, furiously, _then have me_.

Killian hurtled in after her.

For a moment, everything was blindingly white, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

Then he felt the touch of her hand.

It all fell quiet.

There was – nothing.

-/-

His heart was still beating. That was something, he supposed.

Behind his eyelids the light had dimmed, but it was still bright. That was how he knew it was no longer night. The air felt damp, and cold, and smelled faintly of wet moss and pine. The ground beneath his feet felt soft and earthy, and experimentally he wiggled his toes inside his boots. Obligingly, something squelched. Somewhere, a sparrow trilled.

Slowly, he opened his eyes. About a metre in front of him the ground gave way, dropping hundreds of feet below him in stacked and uneven layers of rock, grass and sediment. A distant roar sounded from beneath him, and pitching himself forward a little he could see the crash of the river against the edges of the rockface.

He was standing at the edge of the ravine, he realised. The ravine that Liam had driven into.

“This is what it does,” Emma said from beside him. “It makes you relive all your worst moments.”

His hand was tucked into hers, not unpleasantly. Their shoulders brushed.

“Where am I?”

In the distance something screeched, and he and Emma turned their heads towards the sound. Belatedly, he realised it was the exhausted brakes of a car accompanied by the rumble of an engine, and a wave of nausea began to rise within him. The harshness of the sounds felt dissonant with the relative peace above the ravine, but as Killian turned his eyes to the right he could remember how it had looked in the days that followed. It had rained heavily that afternoon, the police report had indicated that had wiped away most of the evidence, and everywhere mud had been churned over and over, plants ripped from their roots. But at this moment everything was still, undisturbed.

The sound of the motor grew louder.

Killian couldn’t remember how to breathe. He began to feel the light patter of rain on the back of his neck.

_Not this_, he begged, _not this. I don’t want to see this_.

“It’s alright,” Emma said, squeezing his hand tightly. “I’ll be here.”

Then the trees exploded.

Liam’s old Mustang burst through the shrub, and although Killian was anxious not to see it, he couldn’t tear his eyes away, tried to fix his gaze on every single detail in the impossibly short space of time between the car careening from the forest and tipping over the edge of the ravine. It was like watching it in slow motion. The windshield had already cracked in two places, and the Mustang swerved dangerously to the left – attempting to wrench itself to rightness before it was too late, but it _was_ too late – and when Killian finally felt brave enough to look into the cabin, he realised something else with a chilling rush of dread.

Liam was not alone in the car.

Someone else – _something else_ – had two hands on the wheel, and Liam was wrestling for control. Acting purely on instinct Killian surged forward, but Emma’s grip on his hand held him back. He knew, with the certainty that you knew things in dreams, that nothing he could do would be able to stop it.

Then he blinked, and Liam was alone in the car, and the Mustang had hurtled over the edge of the cliff. For a few seconds, the forest had earnt back its stillness.

Then, with an almighty _crash_ that made the ground beneath him shake, the Mustang hit the surface of the water.

Killian couldn’t bring himself to look over the edge. On the cliff, just metres from where Killian now stood, someone else watched the car disappear beneath the walls. It was a man – or no, _was_ it a man, his skin looked more like slick bronze, glittering like the scales of a fish – and then he was gone.

Killian reminded himself to breathe in, and breathe out. Emma reached across and brushed tears away from his cheek with a gentle finger, which was how he realised he had been crying. He clutched her other hand tightly in his own.

He couldn’t speak, and mercifully Emma didn’t seem to expect him to. It could have been minutes that they stood there together, breathing in, breathing out, or it could have been hours. It might not have been more than a few seconds. Somewhere, a sparrow trilled again. Killian began to feel a splatter of rain against the back of his neck, which was how he realised it had stopped raining the first time around.

“Careful,” Emma said. “Here it comes again.”

In the distance, he heard another screech of tired brakes.

Alarmed, Killian turned – and realised the treeline looked exactly as it had when he arrived, before Liam had burst through it.

Overwhelmed by the urge to throw up, Killian bent double and retched, but nothing came out. Emma rubbed a soothing hand on his back.

Again, he watched as the Mustang crashed through the thicket, as Liam fought for control of the wheel with the strange man – the _same man_ who stood on the cliff afterwards before vanishing into thin air, he now realised – and skidded over the edge of the ravine. The world fell apart once more as the car pounded into its final destination.

“Where am I?” Killian repeated, in between taking large gulps of air.

The scaled man on the cliff watched the car, satisfied, before disappearing completely.

“It’s hard at first,” Emma sighed. “I watched my parents abandon me on the side of the freeway, like, a thousand times.” Her hand squeezed his own. “The car pulls over, my Mom gets out, she picks me up in my blanket and puts me down. Then she gets back in and it drives away. It was like picking at a scab I thought had already healed.”

It hadn’t, though. He could have told her that. Some scars were meant to stay with you forever.

_We’ve all got ghosts here._

Somewhere, a sparrow trilled. He began to feel the weak patter of rain against the back of his neck.

“I saw the kid who found me, too,” Emma added, bitterly, “his name’s August. Not that it matters now.”

In the distance, the brakes of the Mustang screeched.

Killian was finding it difficult to process what he was seeing with what he was being told.

“They say that’s the definition of insanity, right? Doing the same things over and over and expecting a different result? I waited for them to get back out, just _once_, to not just _leave_ me there. But that’s what it feeds on. That hoping. The more you fight it, the more you _want_ something else to happen when it never could, the stronger it gets.”

With a shudder, Liam’s Mustang broke the treeline again. It swerved, splattering mud across the clifftop. Liam wrestled for the wheel and the tail of the car swung out; hope shuddered to life within Killian, this time _this_ time he would pull it back, he’d regain control, he’d turn before it –

The Mustang sped over the edge of the ravine.

“He wasn’t alone in the car,” Killian managed to get out, as his heart seized in his chest. “He didn’t – it wasn’t suicide.”

The scaled man on the cliff stared at the disappearing Mustang, and then vanished.

“That’s what the spirit of Brooke House looked like,” Emma said, nodding at where the scaled man had stood. “When it came to Liam.”

_When it came to me_, he wanted to cry, _it looked like you_.

Somewhere, a sparrow trilled. He began to feel the weak patter of rain against the back of his neck.

In the distance, the brakes of the Mustang screeched.

“It threatened you,” she continued softly. “It said it would kill you if he didn’t help the spirit escape the house.”

“But he didn’t,” Killian added, needlessly. Of course he didn’t.

He thought of the ritual, the one Liam had outlined to _banish_ the demon, and he felt weak. Helpless to stop the chain reaction of Liam’s death – both in the weeks that had led up to it, and as witness to his final few moments as the car crashed into the ravine. He would have died on impact, the coroner had said. The body swept up by the rush of the water below, taken out to sea. Just like everyone had always said. That final, private wish that he had only whispered aloud once, that the lack of a body meant that maybe, _maybe_ something else had happened, was finally snuffed out.

Liam had been in that car. It was small comfort to know he hadn’t done it to _himself_.

The Mustang thundered out of the undergrowth, swerved, screeched, and fell.

“He tried to banish it, but he was missing one key ingredient.”

Killian knew, with the certainty that you knew things in dreams, what that missing ingredient had been.

“The dagger.”

Emma nodded. “Right. After that didn’t work… he was always a dead man.”

But how had he known? How had he even _thought_ to banish the demon? It seemed with every answer he got, a thousand more questions rose in its place.

“But the dagger… his _name_ was on the dagger. Why didn’t he –?” _Look like you?_

If Liam had died in the ravine, just like they had always said he had, why was his name on the dagger?

Emma looked out across the ravine, darkly. “That’s just how it keeps score. Its victims. Liam isn’t trapped here, but I’d say he’s still a victim.”

Somewhere, a sparrow trilled. Killian began to feel the splatter of rain against his neck.

“Wouldn’t you?”

In just seconds, gone forever. Not trapped, but gone.

_Trapped_.

For the third time, he asked: “Where am I?”

Emma shook her head. That wasn’t the right question.

In the distance, the brakes of the Mustang squealed.

So instead, he asked: “How do we stop the demon?”

“I’ve already told you,” Emma sighed, airily enough that it felt as if he were just disturbing her at work in the library again. Her voice sounded faint. “God, don’t you ever _listen_?”

_Listen_.

With the suddenness of breathing, his hand closed on empty air where it had once been holding Emma’s. She had gone.

So had the clifftop.

It was like waking up, when you weren’t sure how long you had been asleep.

He was standing in the single room of the old apartment he shared with Liam, and he had always been standing there. It was smaller than he remembered; just the open plan kitchen-stroke-sitting room-stroke-Liam’s bedroom, attached to an even littler bedroom that had been Killian’s. The kitchenette was in the corner, dark and musty smelling, and Liam’s bed was propped against the opposite wall, impeccably made as always. There had only been room for the bare minimum of additional furniture – a chest of drawers for some of Liam’s clothes, the rest hung on a metal rack like the kind found in a shop, a moth-eaten sofa and a small, boxy handheld television plucked right from the jaws of 1994 perched atop an overturned wastepaper basket serving as a table. It was dark, lit miserably by a single window next to the sofa, and warm in the uncomfortable way that a gym was warm; lived in.

It looked so insignificant. Almost barren, certainly cheap. Nothing to be proud of.

Killian longed for it with something so profound that it was an almost physical ache. This was life before Liam had died.

A key clicked in the lock, and the front door to the flat was flung open with more force than necessary. Killian’s heart sank once he realised what he was looking at.

_It makes you relive all your worst moments_.

In tumbled Liam, exactly as he remembered him, and a younger Killian – twelve years old, freckled, dark hair askew, and _furious_.

“—_So_ unfair!” The younger Killian was scowling. “I don’t want to move again! I _just _started making friends!”

Killian had forgotten what it was they had fought about – it had faded completely from his mind beyond the core sentiment, which had been bloody and foul, in the wake of everything else that had happened that day. Now it all came back to him with startling clarity.

This was the last time he had seen Liam alive.

“Well, tough,” Liam said wearily, setting a plastic bag on the counter next to the refrigerator. “We are.”

The younger Killian rounded on him angrily. “Why?”

“For work.”

“Has all the wood been chopped in Storybrooke, then?”

Liam fixed him with a withering look. “Don’t be facetious. It’s important, Killian. You just have to trust me on this.”

He had wanted them to leave town, he remembered now.

_After that didn’t work… he was always a dead man_.

He would have known, even then, that Brooke House was coming for them.

It struck the older Killian, then, just how tired Liam had looked – dark circles clung to the bottom of his eyes, and his skin looked stretched and pale. It also occurred to him how _young_ he was. Liam had always been taller, older, wiser; even after he had died Killian had never thought of him any differently. Yet, here, Liam Jones was just nineteen years old – and he already been looking after the brothers Jones for years already. Killian had already outlived his brother’s unfairly short life by almost three years.

The younger Killian threw himself dramatically down onto the moth-eaten sofa. “I bet Dad wouldn’t make us move.”

Liam scowled, busying himself taking a few meagre groceries out of the bag and putting them away. “_You_ don’t know what Dad is capable of.”

“I would if you just told me!” The younger Killian twisted on the sofa so he could look at his brother, bristling with indignation. “What _is_ it that’s so bad? Why won’t you talk about him or Mum?” Liam kept his mouth set in a thin line. How that had _infuriated_ him at the time. “How about you just tell me, and then I’ll go without a fuss. I’ll even pack tonight! How’s that?”

“I don’t like being held to ransom,” Liam replied tersely. The younger Killian let out a cry of frustration, delivering a swift kick to the sofa, then stormed over to his bedroom door. “And a tantrum won’t help. So long as you continue to behave like a child, I will continue to _treat_ you like –”

The younger Killian whirled around, hand on the doorknob and eyes ablaze.

“I hate you!”

_It makes you relive all your worst moments_.

“I’m not finished,” Liam snapped, “don’t you walk away from me.”

The younger Killian did not listen. He stomped into his room and slammed the door shut behind him.

_Don’t_, Killian begged, _come out. This is it. This is the last time_.

Liam had followed him to the door, let his hand hover above the handle.

_Open it_, he longed, pleaded. _Don’t leave it like this_.

He watched Liam change his mind. He watched him pick up his car keys. He watched him curtly inform the younger Killian that he was going out for a little while, but he would be back soon. He watched him wait for the younger Killian to respond.

He did not.

Liam left the flat.

A key clicked in the lock and in again came Liam, with the younger Killian in tow.

“—_So_ unfair!”

Like the clifftop, he was apparently doomed to watch the same moment over and over – but Killian refused. Seething, he tried to _think_ himself into being somewhere else. He didn’t know the rules here, but somehow he had moved from the ravine to here, and if that was possible then he could move from here to somewhere that was _not here_.

_Not this time_, Killian thought furiously, _no more than once_.

In part instinct and in part miserable fury, Killian put his fist through the thin plaster wall.

Behind his eyes, pain exploded – but it was not from his fist. No, his _wrists_ were smarting, burning with an agony he could not see, and someone was screaming and he thought it might be him, he was back in the sitting room at Brooke House, the storm raged, a tornado of wanting and longing and hoping and nothing ever changing, and he could feel his left hand clasped around the dagger but his right – his right –

Emma was there, and she was holding tightly onto his right hand.

She looked him squarely in the eyes. “_Listen!_”

He was in Granny’s Diner.

He knew this because he could hear the quiet lull of patrons around him, and the faint smell of melted cheese had begun to permeate. He could feel the hard, well-worn cushion from one of the booths beneath him, and he could still taste vanilla cake on the tip of his tongue. He knew because Emma’s arms were around his neck and she was holding him tightly, and he could feel her breath on his lips. He knew because he had lived in this moment so many times, and begged a thousand times to have ended it differently. He didn’t need a demon to do that for him

“Thank you,” Emma had said, her cheeks flushed with glorious delight (_he had done that_, he thought fiercely). “For always knowing exactly what I want before I do.”

“You’re…” he trailed off, because he had become distracted by the bright and welcome jade of her eyes. “You’re welcome.”

All it would take was moving himself closer just an inch. He was suddenly conscious of his hand on the side of her hip, of his desire to move it further around until it brushed her spine, to use it to tug her to him, bridging the final distance between them. Her lips looked soft and pliant, a rosy pink that had spent their lives shaping around his favourite words in the entire world, because everything she said was a gift, and he loved her, God, he loved her, he loved her _so much_.

The jagged beat of _Only You_ was rattling from the jukebox in the corner, and Killian Jones wanted to kiss Emma Swan more than he had ever wanted anything.

He could feel her unsteady breathing, rising and falling against his chest, and he was sure her pulse would be racing to match his – but fear gripped him. What if she didn’t _want_ this? What if it scared her as much as it bloody _terrified_ him? If he leaned forward and she didn’t meet him halfway he didn’t think he could bear it. He hesitated

He hesitated –

He _always_ hesitated when it was important –

_It makes you relive all your worst moments_.

Killian had sailed past this moment more times than he could count, he didn’t need a ghost to remind him of all the roads not taken. For the last five years, _Only You_ had been the song he had _almost_ kissed Emma Swan too, days before he had lost her forever. In that moment, he couldn’t think of anything worse than watching himself, _feeling_ himself _not doing it _over and over for eternity when that had been his only chance.

_That’s what it feeds on. That hoping. The more you fight it, the more you want something else to happen when it never could, the stronger it gets._

Is this what Emma had done, for five years? Replay over and over the worst possible pockets of time it could think to show her, wishing ardently for something to be different, praying desperately for some hope of rescue. He thought back to the tape recorder – she had sounded lost, confused. Defeated. Trapped in an unending limbo of nothing ever changing.

It had to stop today.

_How do we stop the demon?_

_Listen._

Emma’s eyes flickered to his lips, he felt her swaying dangerously forward. The air smelt of burnt toast, vanilla sponge and anticipation, and Killian felt untouchable.

_Only You_ trickled out from the jukebox in the corner.

“‘_Looking from a window above, it’s like a story of love… Can you hear me?’_”

Killian froze.

That song had been following him around for _days_.

_Piss off, ghost_.

A taunt, he had thought. A wretched reminder of everything he had almost had. But what if it wasn’t?

_I’ve already told you. God, don’t you ever listen?_

The tape recorder was proof, Emma had the ability to bleed through the machinations of the demon, to touch her surroundings cautiously, gently, from inside her void of almosts and never-have-beens, and she had been hurling _this moment_ into his path ever since he returned to town.

Maybe something in it had to change.

_But if you fight it_, Killian thought furiously_, that only makes the demon stronger_. So what was he supposed to do?

Emma’s arms tightened almost imperceptibly around his neck.

In the space of a steadying breath, he allowed himself another long look at her. Pretty, dainty eyelashes, but fierce and warm eyes of jade, capable of spitting fire and turning his insides into something weak and wanting. Her lips were parted and daring him closer, and as he entertained the thought of leaning in his heart hammered against his ribcage. God, he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her more than anything.

The future was only sky. They had all the time in the world.

So maybe he _didn’t_ fight it.

He didn’t want to, not anymore. He was so, so tired of fighting his way through life, Mary Margaret had lauded him over his stamina but that’s not what it was, not really, he just couldn’t remember what life had been like before he’d needed to throw up his fists. So he decided he was done with all that. If giving up meant he could live in the sensation of her breath on his lips, of their _almost_ and their _never-have-been_, in that half a second before they decided _no_, then he would happily give up on life outside of this oblivion.

“‘_All I needed was the love you gave…_’”

Because _almost_ kissing Emma, he decided, was so much better than living in a world where he hadn’t done it.

_If you have to have someone_, he thought, _have me_.

It was like waking up, when you didn’t know how long you had been asleep for. Suddenly mobility was possible, and he could feel his own chest rising and falling unevenly, aware of his own breath in a way that made it feel like he hadn’t been breathing before. Once he realised with awe that he could move it, he lifted a trembling hand up to brush a strand of hair behind her ear, cupping her face with the other. As his pulse raced, he just wanted to be sure that she was real.

“Emma,” Killian said, and his voice sounded far away. His thumbs brushed across the shells of her cheeks. “I’d very much like to kiss you now.”

Emma grinned, and he realised she was crying.

“You fucking better.”

Instantly, Killian surged forward.

It was everything he had hoped it would be. Emma was warm, soft, eager, and mimicking the same little sighs he could hear escaping through his own lips – kissing Emma was like kissing air. It was tightness in the top of his stomach; it was saturated mornings under the oaks; it was winter at the door, brushing its feet on the mat; it was the final ten seconds before the whistle blew in a championship game when all that was left was that startling, adrenaline-pumping hope. Kissing Emma was a race that he had been training his entire life for.

Everything was noise.

Wind surged, static hummed, someone screamed but still Killian resisted; he was determined to inhabit _this _moment, _this_ second, if this was the rest of his life then he didn’t intend to stray too far. If it was just the space of a single exhale then he would breathe out, and he would breathe out, and he would learn to go without oxygen because as far as he was concerned, there was no other possible choice he could make. He heard someone calling his name. A hand scrambled at the hem of his jacket. Something fizzled like a power line coming loose and he could hear the sound of glass shattering –

Emma pulled away.

He could still feel her hands in his hair, though. That had to be something. He kept his eyes tightly shut.

He was cold, and he could smell the forest. Dry leaves crunched underneath a boot. He tasted only velvet, mist, and Emma.

“Killian,” she said softly.

Killian shook his head. He didn’t want the dream to end.

“Killian, you can open your eyes.”

Reluctantly, he did as he was bid. He was standing in the middle of a familiar patch of forest, his hands tracing the edge of Emma’s face – because she was here, and she was _solid_, and there wasn’t a lot else he cared about other than that – it had to be the middle of the night, as the sky overhead was a black curtain pulled taut, specks of light barely visible scattered across it. The earth looked black beneath his boots but he knew from the crackle underfoot that in daylight it would be a watercolour pad of New England autumn, but that didn’t make his being there any less disorienting.

“Where did – how did we get out here?”

_Was that – Regina?_

“Oh, _oh_ – _Emma!_”

Killian felt the wind knocked out of him as someone came crashing into the side of he and Emma, throwing their arms around them –_ David?_ – and again they swayed dangerously, but this time someone was crushing him from behind and someone was crying and eventually his knees buckled and they were all tumbling down onto the forest floor. It was haphazard and dizzying, but he recognised their hearts just as clearly as his own; all relief, all love, all fierce, fierce joy.

Emma was clinging to David while he sobbed into her shoulder, and Mary Margaret was holding on tightly from behind and speaking in such a floundering, nonsensical babble that nobody had any idea what she was saying. Killian was dazed, and more than a little confused, but blisteringly happy. He had no idea what had just happened, but since this was the outcome he had been praying for, he chose not to dwell on it.

Regina clapped a hand onto his shoulder, and he spotted her wiping something from the corner of her eye that looked suspiciously like _emotion_.

“It’s over.”

-/-

Brooke House was gone.

That was what they had managed to surmise after they had finally been able to disentangle from each other. It wasn’t that they had been transported to some other location, it was that the house itself had vanished around them, leaving them sprawled in the dirt feeling more than a little shaken and more than a little relieved. The ritual had worked, they had banished the demon, and the only evidence it had ever been there at all was in their story shared, their hard-won memories, and a curving, silver dagger stabbed blade first into the earth. A close inspection revealed its edge to be flat and smooth. No names. Just a dagger. They left it there, buried in the soil. They were finished with it now.

Killian had tried more than once to explain what had happened after he’d hurtled into the storm after Emma, not just to the others but to himself – but Emma had laced their fingers together and she looked so paralyzingly pained and sweet and sad that he had stopped trying. Some things were easier not to explain.

She hadn’t spoken much on the way back, just tucked herself tiredly into Killian’s side and dropped her head against his shoulder. She was wearing the same outfit she had disappeared in, which made her look oddly like something stitched together from different times – she was a woman now, wearing the old, worn, coat and boots of a girl. David had attached himself to her other side, putting a strong arm around her shoulders and occasionally patting her hair, murmuring tender reassurances and kissing her forehead.

Killian knew how he felt. He thought he might have a panic attack if he had to let go of her hand.

Somehow, they had done it. The demon was gone and so was Brooke House, and Emma had been given back to them.

She had been amazed to discover she had been gone for five years.

“I’ll go to the sheriff station first thing,” Emma said, nodding her head like it would settle everything. “Clear your names.”

Regina looked unconvinced. “I’m not sure that’ll do it.” The fact that David had punched Humbert in the jaw was just now coming back to them, and Killian couldn’t help but agree.

“Why not?” Emma argued hotly. Then she pointed at herself. “Missing girl. _No longer missing_. Case closed, right?”

Killian squeezed her hand. “We don’t have to settle anything now.”

For now she was here, and it was enough.

As they turned onto Main Street he felt Emma begin to tremble, her shoulders shaking underneath David’s arm. Whether it was fear or relief or anticipation or a combination of all three, Killian couldn’t tell, but after he had asked her she reluctantly revealed that where she really wanted to go was to the Nolan house; to Ruth.

David turned away to hide a fresh wave of overwhelmed, happy tears, but Emma’s attention was fixed on Killian.

She rounded so she was in front of him, her free hand fisted into the lapel of his jacket.

“I want to see Ruth,” she said, looking agitated, “but I –”

She cut herself off, stared fixedly into his eyes. Willed him to understand.

_I don’t want to be away from you_.

Something warm bloomed in his chest.

“I’m staying at Granny’s,” he offered with a smile. “You could – after. If you want.”

_I love you I love you I love you I love_

“No, he’s not,” Regina cut in. “He’s staying with me.” When they all turned to look at her she bristled, adding lamely: “I’ll… make lasagne.”

Emma laughed and it was such a beautiful sound. “Yeah,” she said softly. “I want.”

By the time dawn had kissed the sky with streaks of pink and orange, that offer had become too tempting for any of them to resist. Regina and Killian had immediately decided sleep was impossible and had started depleting her stores of homemade cider to try and relax their nerves and carry them until morning. They talked about nothing at all, and although Killian could tell Regina was desperate to ask about what they had done, what he might have seen, itching for a chance to make a comparison to her book of spells, Killian did not give her the opportunity to do so. There would be time for all of that.

An hour or so in, Mary Margaret had arrived at the door. Wordlessly, she had proffered a bottle of Jose Cuervo, and they had invited her inside.

The sky was just beginning to brighten when David and Emma returned, which was how they now found themselves laid out on the floor of Regina’s sitting room, gorged on the perfect lasagne and mellowed by fatigue and Jose, watching the sun come up through the tall, French windows.

Emma was curled in Killian’s lap, her legs slung across his and her head resting against his chest, listening to the steady gallop of his heart. He very much wanted to kiss her again – hell, he wasn’t even sure he had kissed her the first time. But there would be time for all of that, too.

Everything was bathed in golden light. Regina was dozing on a sofa, David and Mary Margaret were talking earnestly in hushed, gentle voices, their foreheads touching. Killian was struck by something so _right_, so _definite_, that he wasn’t sure anything he had experienced since Emma had disappeared had been real. This was so clearly how everything was supposed to be that it was inconceivable to imagine it had been any other way.

“Thank you,” Emma murmured against his chest. She lifted her head up so their eyes met. They were a soft storm of emerald, rimmed with a tired scarlet edge along her eyelashes. “For not giving up.”

_I love you_, her fingers curled into the worn leather of his jacket, danced a pattern across his chest. Tapped a beat to match his aching heart. He could hear her. _I love you_. 

“How could I?” he replied. “You know where Archie hides the good snacks.”

She kissed him in the dusty light of morning, and it chased the last of his ghosts away, out into the dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> epilogue incoming! 
> 
> I've written another little part for this, which I'll post as chapter 7 of this fic on wednesday, so keep an eye out for that if you are so interested. 
> 
> I want to thank absolutely everybody that read this fic, this was my first attempt at writing anything horror/spooky related, and I've been so overwhelmed with how supportive you've all been. particularly I want to thank every single person that left me comments or reblogs cheering me on, honestly I have read them all about a thousand times over and I'll read them all a hundred times more and still never get bored of them. I've loved putting this out there and I love that you've all enjoyed it so far - it's been an absolute delight to make your hearts race and keep you awake at night, haha!
> 
> for now, turrah, and see you in the epilogue!


	7. epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and there it ends! thank you all so much for jumping on this crazy train with me.
> 
> a shameless bit of self promotion, but if anyone is interested, next I'll be working on completing my Neverland canon-divergence fic called Brink, which you can find on my author page! I have the next chapter of that ready to post, and updates won't be nearly as quick as these last few ones have been, but if you fancy checking it out, it's a fun ride that I'm looking forward to finishing.
> 
> but for now, peace & love, thank you to every SINGLE one of you that decided to click on this little piece of weirdness, I have had so so so much fun <3 over and out!

_“A house is never still in darkness to those who listen intently; there is a whispering in distant chambers, an unearthly hand presses the snib of the window, the latch rises. Ghosts were created when the first man awoke in the night.” _

– J.M. Barrie 

** Present Day **

Emma had expected it to be more difficult to return to the place Brooke House had once stood.

The last few days had passed in a rapid flurry of everyone telling her how much Brooke House had taken from her – the last five years of her life, for one. Her high school graduation. Her own funeral, apparently, her bus ticket to Augusta. Her last chance to thank Archie Hopper for everything he had done for her before he moved away. Five Super Bowls, David had added, rattling off Patriots, Broncos, Patriots, Eagles, Patriots – _seriously, Pats again?_ – before she had a chance to let him know a five year stint as a permanent haunted house resident hadn’t made her any less indifferent to football.

_Tom Brady is the GOAT, _was all Killian had offered when she looked to him for backup, much to her exasperation.

But it was more than that. Those first few hours out of Brooke House had made her feel like a child, she hadn’t been able to stop herself from clinging to Killian, to David, to Ruth; she had to be _touching_ something, holding something, just to remind herself it was all real and not another cruel trick. The darkness had dangled the tantalizing notion of a rescue before her so many times that she was sure her imagination was strong enough to conjure up one so tangible all on its own.

But this was it. This was real. She was home.

“What else did you see?” Killian had asked her once, quietly, while they sat on the steps leading out into Regina’s backyard.

It had overgrown into something wild and crooked, another marker for the passage of time, with large tufts of grass and weeds growing in all directions, some even reaching as far as her hip. The apple tree at the centre was the only tended for and trimmed element amongst the unruly greenery, but the untamed nature of the rest of it comforted Emma. It made her feel like she was in the forest again.

When Emma had not immediately replied, Killian had elaborated. “In the – storm. Other than your parents, I mean. What else did you see?”

_The storm_, they had taken to calling it, as if it were just a passing, temporary weather event. Emma knew what it really was. Sometimes it was like she could still feel it breathing within her, sinking into the marrow of her bones, and in a way, she supposed it was.

Demons you could vanquish, but darkness stayed with you. It was born with you and it died with you and sometimes in the middle it reminded you from time to time that it was there.

She had smiled at Killian tightly and shaken her head. He looked troubled, but like he understood. She couldn’t think about it anymore; she wanted to move forwards, not backwards.

Which was why she had insisted they return to where the house had been.

“I don’t want to always be thinking about it,” she said, looking around at their reluctant faces. “I want to see it and know that it’s over.”

She had thought it would be more difficult to head back there – but with Killian’s hand in hers and the others following close behind, she had felt herself grow in confidence with every step along the White Pine trail, and further still once they stepped off of it. Her pulse raced, but it wasn’t for the same reckless, debilitating fear that it had thumped with that first night, when everything looked too vivid to be anything but a dream and she was waiting for the ground to crumble underneath her, to send her shattering back into the walls of Brooke House.

Killian had come for her. Even after five years, he refused to give up.

He had spent so much time apologising for not coming sooner, but she didn’t care about all that. It had taken her that amount of time to master herself enough to start to slip through the cracks, to try and show him something of _her_ after she felt him cross the town line, and not just the demon.

As expected, the clearing was empty when they got there.

She felt the barest tingle, the skim of something _other_ brush across her arms and down her neck, but it wasn’t strong enough to be anything but a whisper against her skin.

“Look,” David said, pointing into the centre.

There, where they had left it buried into the earth, stood the dagger.

Emma felt a shot of rage and a thrill of something greedy which frightened her; it wasn’t whispering to her like it used to, but it felt like it was _trying_ to. Clearing its throat over and over and searching for sound.

“Are you alright?” Killian asked, and she realised he was peering closely at her.

She offered him a quick smile, willing it to be anything but as brittle as she felt. “I – yeah.”

Five years. Five years of her life.

Storybrooke had been amazed to see her return. She was due to go back down to the Sheriff station for yet another interview with Graham Humbert, where she was sure he would try and grill her again for details about what she remembered – and she was speaking truthfully when she told him she remembered very little. Like a strange, distant dream, the more she tried to clutch at her experiences in Brooke House, the more they seemed to vanish like smoke.

The only clear picture left was the image of her mother, lifting a baby Emma out of the car, and placing her on the side of the freeway.

She had no idea if it was even real. It still made her want to cry.

The only positive about the process of closing the missing persons case was that it lifted Killian off the hook – in the eyes of the law, at least. Not in the eyes of the town. She was surprised by the vitriol with which he was still met with, and while he could no longer be punished with a murder charge, no doubt most of Storybrooke still believed he had kidnapped her and only recently released her. No matter how angry it made her, he begged her to let it go. After everything that had happened he told her he couldn’t care less, that everybody who mattered knew the truth and he bore no ill will to any of the residents who still looked at him like he was still a stain on their otherwise perfect town. None of that mattered to him.

_Sometimes_, he had said, with the sort of smile that made him look like he was letting her in on a secret, _the best books have the dustiest jackets_.

Killian was her favourite chapter of every novel she had ever read. He was the feeling of curling your toes under a warm rug in front of a fire, he was the splash of cool water in the heat of summer. He was her favourite song, her best fitting jacket, that moment you could finally take off your boots at the end of a long day. To her, he would always be twelve and kind and sad, and seventeen and strong and yearning, but now he was something else too – he was twenty-two and scarred but still hoping, loving, and knowing there was something better out there for them. He was so confident that now they had fought so hard for their happiness, their freedom, that the universe would naturally bend, compensate, and let them have it for as long as they wanted it.

Only sky for miles, and miles, and miles. 

She _had_ to match that confidence. She had to.

So, because he wanted her to, she didn’t try to take on the town and their ill feeling. She _did_, however, make sure Ruth Nolan, at the very least, understood the situation perfectly, and insisted she apologise for any wrongful blame she might have cast on Killian in the wake of her disappearance. And at Emma’s request she had done so, emphatically. In fact, she had cried when she thought of any additional pain she might have caused him, but Killian had dismissed her worry and forgiven her immediately. This, at least, was a victory that they could have.

In the clearing, Killian’s hand tightened on hers. Maybe he sensed her thoughts had wandered elsewhere.

The others were also stood, staring pensively at the dagger. Only two inches or so were buried into the soil, so the flat edge of the curved blade could still be seen, and so could the fact that there wasn’t a single name on it. No more names of those stolen in the middle of the night or sent crashing over clifftops; no more victims for the demon to want to keep score of.

But Emma did not _want_ to be a victim.

She squeezed Killian’s hand, once, and then let go.

Feeling the others’ eyes on her, Emma stepped forward and crouched in front of the dagger, feeling that hiss of something _other_ reaching out for her. It cajoled, it pleaded, it invited her to take another look, to give it one last chance, but it was easy to brush the tendrils of its hunger away now. There was no heat behind it. It was just metal in the earth; it held no power over her now.

Emma reached forward, clasping a hand around its hilt, and tugging it out of the soil. Dirt crumbled from the edge of the blade and dribbled onto the ground underneath.

_Five years_. Five years of her life.

“This will _not_ define me,” she vowed.

In the end, they had taken it to the ravine. She could feel the dagger heating up against her palm the nearer they got, it _knew_, she could tell, but she hadn’t let that stop her from hurling it out into the air. It had arced neatly across the gorge before disappearing down below, the distant ripple of its landing in the river just barely visible from where they stood.

It was gone. It was over.

And she was home.

They all watched as the current continued to flow, the harsh purl of the river against the banks of the ravine a distant roar. This was near to where Liam had driven over, that much she knew. They all had ghosts they wanted buried down below.

“There’s still one thing I don’t understand,” Killian said, finally.

Mary Margaret let out an amused sound. “Only one?”

Her hand was curled around David’s arm, and she was leaning in close to him. They had spent the entire night talking when they had come back from Brooke House, and much of the following day. What they discussed David had kept close to his chest, even from Emma, but something about looking at them now made her heart want to burst. This was something they had all earnt.

Killian hummed in reply, but he was smiling. He quickly mastered it and tried to school his features into something a little more serious.

The hard line of his jaw, the beard she most _definitely_ approved of, the barely visible scar on his right cheek. She loved him. She loved all of it.

“It’s just… it’s Liam. How did he _know_ all that stuff about how to banish a demon? Or better yet, why didn’t he just hightail it out of town immediately after being threatened by a malevolent spirit?” Killian shook his head, a flicker of sadness crossing his features and Emma stepped a little closer to him. “He stayed, he made all those notes on the ritual, he went to talk to Belle, on his own… I was always only ever following in his footsteps. So how did he know to do all this by himself?”

They were all silent for a moment, eyes fixed on where the dagger had disappeared beneath the surface down below.

“Magic is… it’s real,” David said, almost disbelievingly, but Emma knew he didn’t doubt anymore.

Her fingertips tingled with possibility. _Oh, how it changed the world_.

“I guess it isn’t so farfetched to assume he was somebody that knew that.”

Killian looked distressed at the notion. “But why wouldn’t he _tell_ me?”

“You were just a kid,” Regina offered, with almost uncharacteristic gentleness. “Maybe he would have, later.”

There was so much they still didn’t know, and perhaps they never would – Killian had told her that Liam had never really wanted to talk about their parents. Maybe there was something in that. Maybe there wasn’t. Maybe, in the end, Liam Jones had been just as scared as they all were, and had improvised as best he could.

Liam Jones. Five whole years – lost not just to her, but to all of them.

Brooke House would not, _could _not, take anything else from them now.

Regina turned to go, with Mary Margaret and David following close behind.

Killian and Emma hung back just a little, staring out into the gorge and down into the frothy waters below. It had been there for a couple of days now, that heaviness that hung around Killian’s shoulders like reluctance or trepidation, so finite you could miss it if you didn’t know the curve of his smile as intimately as Emma knew it.

And she knew what it had to mean, too.

She let out a long breath through her mouth. “You’re not staying, are you?”

Killian closed his eyes. After a few thinly stretched moments, he spoke.

“I always thought that once we got you back, everything would just… right itself. Storybrooke would feel like home again. Everything would be as it was before.”

Before, when they were teenagers and invincible and they could do anything just because anything was what they had always been told they could do. When the town could look at them all with fondness because that was how you looked at the promising next generation of likeminded neighbours; when there had been a bus waiting to take them to Augusta still fresh-faced, wide eyed, and about to get their lives started.

“But it can’t be like before,” Emma said, slipping her hand into his. “You know that.”

_Oh, how it changed the world_.

Killian sighed, like he knew this but did not want to be told it. He squeezed her hand.

“You know I’m coming too, right?” she informed him.

He instantly tried to pull away, shaking his head. “Emma, I couldn’t ask you to –”

“Then it’s a good thing you’re not asking,” she said firmly. “I’m _telling_ you. You go, I go.”

Killian swallowed. “But… Ruth, David –”

“Going away doesn’t mean never coming back,” she pointed out. “You should know that better than anyone.”

This, he conceded.

“I love you,” he said.

Emma was surprised to see something like apprehension lingering in his expression as he said it, and when she thought on it she was startled to realise that might be the first time he had said it out loud. No conditions, no threats to life or limb or worse. It astonished her, but only because she felt like she had been hearing him say he loved her since she was twelve, in every deed or action that he had shaped tenderly and perfectly just for her.

Saying words, she decided, did not make them magic. It was everything else that made them so spellbinding.

She lifted a hand to his cheek and kissed him slowly, on the spot where it all began.

“I love you too.”

Hand in hand, they began their slow walk back to the treeline.

“So, where are we going?”

Killian rubbed a hand on the back of his neck. “I hate to admit it, but Augusta really blew. Too damp. I was there for three months and it rained basically the entire time.”

“No way, it sucked? After all that build up?” she laughed. Killian nodded regretfully, but he was smiling.

“I was actually thinking – well. I went back to the group home a little while ago, and they said Archie moved to Portland. I have no idea if he’d still be there, but,” he lifted his shoulder in a half shrug, “I have some stuff I’d like to say to him. If – if there’s an opportunity to do so.”

Emma hummed a little in agreement. “That’s something else we have in common.”

Portland, then. She remembered that summer they spent the day traipsing around looking for a _particular_ lobster restaurant that had turned up nothing besides one perfect, happy day with Killian. Maybe this time they’d have better luck. It filled her with immeasurable warmth to think on their lives together extending out in front of them, the red carpet to the show of her life, just now beginning again but ready to soar.

Killian was speaking, but Emma’s attention was suddenly drawn elsewhere; something had almost imperceptibly changed in the air, like a sound she had been hearing in her subconscious had dropped out without warning. She tensed. It was somehow a lot colder than it had been a moment ago, and gooseflesh erupted up her arms and down the back of her neck.

Subtly, so Killian wouldn’t notice, she turned her head to look over her shoulder.

There, at the edge of the ravine, stood the scaled man, his mouth wide to reveal a set of crooked, sharp teeth. His basket of spun gold twine stood proudly at his feet. He raised a hand to her in greeting, nails pointy and black –

She blinked and he was gone.

Her heart hammered one terrible thump against her ribcage.

Nothing could ever be like it was before.

Not now she carried the truth so tacitly; the truth that everyone knew but refused to speak aloud, keeping it hidden in the most desperate, sacred corner of their hearts.

Darkness never left you.

It was born with you, it died with you, and sometimes, in the middle, it liked to remind you that it was there.

-/-

** Coda – Date Unknown **

Mom had always told him not to play out by the creek, but he couldn’t help it. It was by_ far_ the most interesting part about visiting Grandma, since they had to spend the _whole_ weekend there and the town always seemed to him like it would rather be fast asleep. There was nothing to do; no arcade, no park, and only one diner that served the same six meals over and over without fail. Mom hated it when he complained, but he was eleven, not four, and Grandma was snoring half the time anyway. He needed to find entertainment _somewhere_.

But the creek was different. It was vivid where everything else was lazy, a sapphire current of fast but shallow water, with a tide that rose and fell so unpredictably that he had returned home with soaking wet sneakers more times than he could count. His favourite game was leaping from stone to stone as far out as he dared, until the water got deeper, so deep he couldn’t see to the bottom anymore, and tried to keep his balance and stop himself toppling in.

Today he was determined to make it a few stones farther than yesterday. There was a particularly sturdy looking one shaped like a tooth that stuck out in the centre, and he was sure if he could make it as far as the large, flat rock next to it, then he’d be able to balance on Tooth for a few moments and _really_ feel like the King of the river.

He heard someone call his name and his heart leapt into his mouth – Dad. _Shoot_. Mom always sent Dad out looking for him when she thought he was by the creek. He still sounded a long way off, though. If he started now, there was a chance he could make it all the way out to Tooth and back before he was seen, and pretend he was just skimming the woods looking for rabbits.

He shirked his jacket and rolled it up into a ball, leaving it on the bank like a marker of where he needed to return to, and began hopping across his usual route. For a fleeting moment he almost lost his balance on the fourth rock, and paused to steady himself before starting out again. After a minute or so he made it to the stone he’d gotten to yesterday, something blocky but wide enough to hold him without concern.

Yesterday, Tooth had looked so far away, like something far beyond his reach. He was _sure_ it was closer today.

_Or_, he decided eagerly, _he was just bigger than he was yesterday_.

Gathering his courage, he aimed for the large rock beside tooth and pushed off with a fierce leap – before landing in an unsteady huff exactly where he meant to. Elated, he couldn’t help it – he let out a crow of success, a loud and wild thing that echoed out into the walls of the cliff faces around him.

When Dad’s shouts started to grow louder and nearer, he realised that was probably not the best idea.

He hurriedly turned his attention to Tooth, jutting out from the fast current like the ancient fang of a mountain lion, or – or the end of the tusk of a woolly mammoth. Its tip was sharp and narrow, and he realised now, up close, that he would probably only be able to get one foot up onto it, which meant he wouldn’t be able to balance there for very long.

Before he could take the final step and make it there, something caught his eye under the surface of the water. Out here the river was deep and quick, and he wasn’t stupid enough to just stick his arm in and reach blindly, but something was definitely – _there_. It had to be something shiny, it kept reflecting the light of the sun back at him.

It was probably buried treasure! Gold or _real_ sapphires, emeralds, something that would make Mom and Dad so pleased they wouldn’t even care that he’d been out by the creek.

Kneeling down, he examined it a little closer. It must be wedged into the side of Tooth, which was why it hadn’t been carried away by the current or sunk down to the waterbed. He reached into the water and wrapped his hand around it – it was surprisingly narrow, heavy and wedged _tight_.

He had to wiggle it about for a minute or two, slowly edging out from where it had gotten stuck, and after a final _heave_ it suddenly came loose and his momentum almost sent him stumbling back into the water.

After regaining his balance, he paused to examine his prize.

With a surge of disappointment, he realised it wasn’t gold or jewels, but it _was_ beautifully made – it made him think of the knights in his storybook or soldiers ready to fight a forever war. It was some kind of knife, but the blade was beautifully curved in a way he’d never seen in any picture book, like the long tail of a snake curling into a sharp, deadly point.

It looked like it could _really_ do some damage. It filled him with a special kind of thrill when he considered it. It made him feel – powerful.

And it… it _whispered_, almost.

The sound of someone calling his name, from _incredibly _nearby, jerked him from his reverie.

There stood Dad, arms folded sternly beside his discarded jacket on the riverbank, looking cross.

_Crap_.

He wasn’t sure why, but something made him want to conceal his new discovery from his father, so he tucked it behind him while he yelled an apology. Dad looked annoyed, but in that relaxed, almost-fun sort of way that told him if he played his cards right, he might just call him _rascal_, ruffle his hair a little and not tell Mom about it all.

When Dad bent to pick up the rolled up jacket left on the riverbank, the boy used that half a second to spare another glance at the knife, resting temptingly in his palm.

“Come on, kid,” Dad called.

_Yes_, he heard someone say. _Come. Listen_.

The boy tightened his hand around the knife – no, _dagger_, the word suddenly came to him, fascinated by its curve.

“Henry!”

Henry stood quickly, stuffing the dagger hurriedly underneath his shirt to keep it from view.

“Yeah, yeah!” he called back, readying himself to hop back onto the next rock.

His heart quivered with the hum of a new adventure.

_Listen_.

“I am,” he said, “I’m listening.”


End file.
